It was a hot summer day when a team of likeminded friends (Dr. Fateh Muhammad Burfat, Tauseef Lateef, Noman ulhaq Siddiqui, Dr. Sajid Ali, and Mehboob Meghani) visited Razzakabad relief camp for flood victims at Bin Qasim-Karachi.
Purpose of the visit was multifold, firstly to get a feel of the camp i.e. the setup, facilities, organizations working, size of camp etc., second is to engage children in some sort of educational activity that could detach them from the camp hardship and provide them an opportunity to cheer and take on to some creative Endeavour.
Overview:
Razzakabad is situated at the east side of Karachi adjacent to National Highway located at some 25km from the University of Karachi. The first sight of the camp was of series of approximately 90 tents arranged in an orderly fashion with toilets and water tanks along with temporary mosque.
However when we reached at the centre of camp then we realized that the camp also incorporates the adjacent building of government college with not less than 30 large rooms. A small dispensary cum mobile hospital was also established in the premises of the college.
Though the camp was accessible for everyone however we got an extra edge due to the fact that the coordinator of the camp i.e. Ms. Shehla Raza (Deputy Speaker, Sindh assembly) was known to Dr. Fateh and she gave us a thorough briefing about the camp and facilities they are trying to provide since the inception of the camp.
It was heartening to know that the complete data was organized by her team members (group of volunteers named AIRD) comprised of Family profiles, number of tents, age wise profile of children etc. When asked whether we could get hold of the data she mentioned that they are going to digitized the data and then could be shared with us.
We took a small tour of the college side of the camp and it was alarming to see that each room house approximately 80 persons and on average 12 families per room. On a quick glance on the situation we found out that ratio of adults and children was about 50:50. Secondly females are more than the male and the ratio was 1:4.
We were lucky enough to know that the organizers of the camp were planning to open the school the following day and had just cleared up big hall for the same purpose.
We volunteered to initiate the school activity as we had planned some educational interventions. We had taken some resource material like:
- Water Colours.
- Pastel Colours.
- Crayons.
- Drawing Sheets.
- Colouring Books.
- Markers and other Stationary Items.
As the number of candidates exceeded our expectations we needed to innovate and redistribute the material affectively so that all the children could participate in some kind of activity. Earlier we planned to distribute some 50 booklets and some other material individually; it could not happen because of the large number of children. We along with a group of volunteer teachers and students organized groups and asked the children to draw, write or colour the picture given to them with the help of crayons and markers. The result was overwhelming at for a moment the children had forgotten their conditions and enjoyed and participated wholeheartedly in the whole activity which was a pleasing sight at the camp. The students displaced their work of art and some of it will be scanned and be put on the blog for all to see.
At the end of the activity we distributed some 100 packs for the kids that included:
1. Small Mineral Water,
2. Small Tetrapack Milk,
3. Small roll of Marie Biscuits etc.
This is a small intervention on our part but a long term planning and support is required and for this many people need to help in many ways may that be kind, cash or volunteer their time. We have already initiated a Social Volunteer Movement of Students as an attempt to streamline the processes in the relief camp by providing administrative and logistic support to camp organizers. For that purpose a letter has already been forwarded to Professor Burfat, who promised to take it further for initiation.
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