Great and Small

Just for a change I am going to name a few names. Sana Saleem. Faisal Kapadia and Awab Alvi. Obaid Ullah and Dr Mukhtiar. The Abaseen Foundation. The UK Department for International Development. Rose Cork. In the last week every one of these people and organisations has reached out to the people of Pakistan and done something practical to help them. There are many thousands more like them but space precludes their mention.

So what have they done?

Sana Saleem and Faisal Kapadia have, for the last three weekends, organised and delivered aid to displaced flood victims in south Sindh. They have worked tirelessly and selflessly in difficult conditions. Sana has published an online ‘this is how to do it’ guide for small non-formal groups delivering aid. It is a minor gem of distilled common sense. Obaid Ullah, Dr Mukhtiar and their colleagues – including female health workers – trekked for miles across dangerous terrain to bring aid to the people of the village of Dubair in Kohistan. At one point they descended a forty-foot cliff on a ladder made of bijli poles and wooden slats – and yes, the women health workers did too. They work for the Abaseen Foundation, a small UK charity that has so far raised GBP 93,000 for flood victims. Rose Cork will be spending her Saturdays until Christmas on Blackpool station (Blackpool is a seaside town in the northwest of England) with a collecting box asking for contributions. She has made a personal pledge to raise at least ten pounds a day.

The Department for International Development and I have not always enjoyed the best of relations – but that was then and this is now. Today, DfID are at the forefront of international aid delivery in Pakistan. Health services, shelter, food and water are all being delivered across the affected areas. And there are bridges – ten on their way by ship from the UK and two from Karachi that are bound for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa which has lost dozens of key bridges.

Why have I highlighted these people and organisations? Because there is a lot of negative media coverage of flood-relief operations. This or that person or agency has failed in their duty. ‘Nobody has come to us,’ says a survivor at the roadside. But that is the job of the media you will rightly say, to expose the failings of the great and the not-particularly good – but in doing so to the exclusion of all else we are in danger of losing sight of other truths.

Pakistan is not only a country where men get beaten to death by a baying mob, it is also a place where the likes of Sana Saleem, Faisal Kapadia, Obaid Ullah and Dr Mukhtiar all put themselves out to help those less fortunate than themselves. They do not ask what sect or political group those who receive their help belong to. They don’t expect ‘protocol’ to be shown them as they quietly go about their business. Rose Cork will be collecting money for people of another faith to herself – she is a Christian, the vast majority of those who will benefit from her efforts will be Muslims. And the international community has not shunned us as some might have us believe. The bridges that DfID is delivering will carry the feet of young and old, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Christian and even the godless like me if I happen to be up in KP. The great and the small are working without fanfare or expectation of recognition or reward, and they serve as a reminder that whilst Pakistan is not all good – it is not all bad either.

Chris Cork

The writer is a British social worker settled in Pakistan.