Playing for keeps

For a long time Mehroze Kiyani wondered how he could help the young people of Abbotabad who had lost their way and were leading aimless lives. His biggest wish was to help young people who had turned to drugs and crime in their despair. But Mehroze is not a person who only wishes for good in his society; he is actually a doer. Mehroze got in touch with individuals at the Sarhad Rural Support Programme (SRSP) – a partner organization of the British Council who invited him to participate in their next Active Citizens capacity building workshop.

According to Mehroze this was a turning point in his life: “I came to realize that young people living in any country are capable of bringing a remarkable change (in their societies)”. A key feature of the Active Citizens training programme is its flexible and adaptable structure. Taking advantage of this flexibility Mehroze chose an often overlooked aspect of society for his social action project: sports.

 But Mehroze did not pick any popular sport for his project, no he wanted to connect with young people on a physical as a well as an emotional level. He decided to work with traditional sports that used to be popular in the Abbotabad area; sports, which sadly had been ignored for many years. On being asked why he chose to base his Social Action Project (SAP) on sports, Mehroze said: “I think that involving young people in healthy physical activity is an effective way to keep them on the right track – and away from despair and antisocial behaviour”. Besides, adds Mehroze: “this is also a way to get in touch with a forgotten dimension of our culture”.

           
Mehroze enlisted the help of a few friends to help him research these cultural sports, help organize training camps, and promote them. Together they identified a sport that tested endurance and strength of athletes who had to lift small boulders (بُتکر بازی) and move them to a certain point. The beauty of this social action project was that Mehroze did not have to invest any money for sports equipment; all he needed was rocks of a suitable size and the right location out in the open.

           
Experts in the local sport were invited from the union council who advised the young participants on how to play according to the correct rules, regulations, and what safety precautions they should follow. Once the training camp was over, a tournament was organised. The tournament was a success with a better turnout than was expected by Mehroze. The winner was awarded a cash prize of Rs. 500.

           
Mehroze and his friends now plan to organize more training camps and contests for other traditional games. The youth group is pleased to see that young people of the area have embraced بُتکر بازی as a recreational activity. Mehroze talks about his social action project fondly and discussing its effects on the young people of his area remarks: “although my social action project is not a quick fix to the problems that local young people face, but it’s a start. After all, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step”

Trafficking in safety

The Peshawar based social action group ‘Shaoor’ is a traffic safety awareness group founded by Sapna Hayat who along with her friends attended the Active Citizens training at Dost Welfare Foundation.

Traffic safety was chosen by the group for their Social Action Project because they were deeply moved by the death of a guard who worked at their university, by a speeding car. Shaoor realised something needed to be done regarding the traffic of their city, Peshawar.

They launched an awareness campaign for which they designed and printed posters and stickers about traffic rules and road safety. These posters and stickers were printed in English, Urdu and the local language Pashto.

The group members visited bus stops and talked to the drivers and passengers about observing traffic laws and driving safely. They also visited various universities where they conducted workshop session as part of their awareness campaign.

An Indian organization helped Shaoor with their work shops and is still collaborating with them by sharing their experiences and ideas. Today Shaoor has 15 active members and100 volunteers.

A polio-free Pakistan: turning the dream into reality

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), polio eradication drives in Pakistan can be very challenging endeavours. Approaching marginalised groups in remote areas of the country is a hard enough task, but perhaps the biggest challenge for anti-polio Health Workers is overcoming the cultural and social challenges peculiar to these communities.

Sikandar Khan is an Active Citizen and an Active Citizens training facilitator. Sikandar and his youth group, Movement for Rural Development Organization (MRDO) shared their experience of working for polio awareness and eradication with a rural community with us. Sikandar and his group members are from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), a conservative region of Pakistan. The group selected a village in a remote area of KPK to launch their Social Action Project.

According to Sikandar, communities in this region are particularly tight-knit. Like all tight-knit communities, they are not very open to advances by strangers. Although members of these communities are known for their warmth and hospitability, it does take them a little time to start trusting people who are not community members.

A major hurdle faced by the group was changing opinions and attitudes of the community members formed because of misconceptions about the polio vaccination campaign. One popular myth about the campaign is that the polio vaccine causes infertility and sterility. The group members organised awareness sessions with the village elders and faith leaders to address these misconceptions and highlighted the need for vaccinating young children.

The outcome of these sessions was very favourable for the group’s project. Most of the elders and faith leaders were successfully persuaded to convince the community members to have their children vaccinated.

The group also enlisted the help of Lady Health Workers (LHW) to administer the vaccine to the children – as all male health worker teams are generally mistrusted by conservative communities in Pakistan. Ultimately 39 families out of 54 had their children vaccinated against polio.

MRDO now plans to return to the village to try and convince the remaining 15 families to get their children vaccinated against the disease.

Empowerment through entrepreneurship

The majority of women in Pakistan do not have a say in the decisions that affect their lives. Illiteracy and cultural constraints keep them for standing up for their civil, political, legal and economic rights. Recognising this, a group of students from the University of Peshawar initiated a social action project to empower women through entrepreneurship. The aim of the project is to provide rural women with opportunities to utilise their skills and creativity which in turn, will give them the freedom to improve their financial condition. Moreover they wanted to ensure equal opportunities for the women of their community, and to create a space where they can utilize their skills and creativity.

The group comprises of students of Peshawar University who met at an Active Citizens training workshop organised by the Institute of Social Work, Sociology & Gender Studies. They named their group the Youth Promotion Social Development and chose to work in Nowshera, a flood-affected district where women are at a greater disadvantage: having lost their homes, their possessions and all semblance of a normal life. Working with the rural women they came to the realization that most of them were illiterate; neither had they received any vocational training which would have enabled them to generate income.

The active citizens organised a workshop where, as a first step towards building confidence, the rural women were encouraged to speak out about the problems they faced in their day-to-day lives, their dreams and their ambitions. The second phase of the workshop was a training session of ten days, during which 25 women were taught how to make hand bags, wall hangings, embroidered pieces and bangles.

Once the training was completed, the group organised an exhibition to introduce, promote and market the work among the general public. The group hopes to develop this model into a successful enterprise and use the funds generated from the sales to improve the condition of the women in Nowshera.