Slums and mountains….

Last Sunday Corry and I went to Islamabad as we had to renew our visas. So much for all the horror stories about bureaucracy and red tape – it only took about five minutes! (though I think that VSO put in all the hard work before we arrived). So we had the large part of two days in Islamabad – I have to say that this did involve some shopping. But on Monday I was able to visit the Islamabad office of MIED – they have two projects working with Christian communities in the slums. They run ECCD centres for children aged 3 – 6, and non-formal education programmes for children who for whatever reason haven’t been going to school. The purpose of the NFE centres is to enable the children to be mainstreamed back into the formal education system. Last year I think over 200 children returned to school after attending the NFE centres. The major reason children aren’t attending school is the illiteracy and lack of awareness of the parents rather than absolute poverty. People were telling me that it is not unusual for families to have TVs in their houses! I visited an NFE centre, and I was really impressed. The teacher comes from the community and was very young, but had proper well-organised lesson plans and the kids were all involved in their work.

The team works mainly with the Christian community because they are particularly marginalised. I was surprised by how large the Christian minority is. Also, when we were travelling to the centre one of the people I was with pointed out someone sweeping the streets and said that they were Christian. I found it quite shocking that they could tell someone’s religion on the basis of the poverty of their job.

So, that was the slums part. Now we come to the mountains again! I went on another field trip to an earthquake affected valley, with (a different) ECCD team. They were holding workshops for education committees. These are the community groups who are taking over responsibility for the running of their ECCD centres. For most of the morning I was with a mother’s meeting – there were about 7 mothers there, and they were discussing what their responsibilities should be. This is a pilot project as there are only five mothers committees, and MIED are assessing how successful it is to get the mothers involved. All the other education committees consist of men. But I was impressed on the basis of that meeting – the mothers were all participating, and were bringing up problems they were facing, such as caregivers not turning up to work. The women were all illiterate, and the meeting was conducted in Hindko rather than Urdu, which meant it was almost completely incomprehensible – though one of the girls did translate for me some of the time. The meeting took place in an ECCD centre which was full of the children’s work and decorations made out of milk cartons and things. But it was completely freezing and there was snow outside. There was a wood stove inside, which itself is a mark of successful community mobilisation – the members of the community themselves each give a portion of wood so the place can be warm for their children. But there was no funnel so the room was incredibly smoky. And the walls were made of mud which the rain was washing away in places.

I also went briefly to the male workshop that was being held separately. This was conducted in Urdu (which illustrates the extent to which men have more education than the women). I asked the men whether they are pleased with the work of MIED and there was an immediate response - they all said yes and nodded, which was impressive. They said that their children are more confident, have better hygiene practices, they know more about their religion and are getting used to attending the centre regularly. I also asked them what the main challenges were – there was quite a list like improved building structures, better ceilings, having gas fires. They are all really reasonable requests, but the problem, as always, is the budget. On the one hand it is great that the demands are coming from the community themselves rather than ideas being imposed by the NGO. But unfortunately apparently they thought I was from the donor (quite reasonably I suppose cos I’m a foreigner). I really don’t know what they thought when they listed all their requests and I just smiled and nodded and didn’t make any response (to be honest most of it was in Urdu so I didn’t really understand at the time anyway.)

It took about 2 and a half hours to reach the centres, and the roads were often little more than mud, and washed away in places. There were six people in the car so on the way there I had to sit with another girl squashed in the front! I am slowly getting used to Pakistani methods of driving, and am not clenching all my muscles and grinding my teeth at every near miss – I would end up with awful headaches and no teeth. And plus Pakistani drivers are very well experienced in near misses and have a very good understanding of the width of their car.

We were invited to lunch with a health worker who lives in the community. They lived in a traditional building made out of mud, with no windows, no boundary wall. We all sat round a wood fire, and had a lovely lunch of corn bread and spinach curry.

And in the evening I was invited round to dinner to the family of one of the girls in the ECCD team. It was great – the family was sooo hospitable and cooked lovely food. And not only did they cook a wonderful meal, they also said it was traditional for them to give presents to guests when they first come in their home! So the gave me a beautiful shawl and some lovely jewellery. The generosity of people here is completely amazing.