Saying no – Active Citizens in Muzzafargarh and their battle against drug addiction

“People who are drug addicts are most vulnerable in our society and deserve our care, love, and attention”

Says Taimoor Khalid – a young Active Citizen from Muzzafargarh. Taimoor along with four other group members is working with members of his community to help people struggling with drug addiction.

An idea takes root

Drug abuse has always been part of the day-to-day life in Taimoor’s neighbourhood. There is only one public park where Taimoor lives, and as far back as he can remember it has always been home to drug addicts. The drugs of choice: Heroin and Hashish.

According to Taimoor, on a given day it is normal to see 50 to 60 addicts in the park, abusing drugs in public. Over the years this has had the effect of desensitizing people to this damaging practice.

This is why when these five young people were asked to propose a Social Action Project in the final phase of their training, they chose to start an awareness campaign against drug abuse and to work together to help addicts recover from their addiction and to ease their path back into society as valued and contributing members.

Indifference

Perhaps the biggest challenge for the group was convincing families of addicts that drug addiction is a disease and people who abuse drugs require medical attention to recover from it and proper rehabilitation so that they do not relapse.

In most cases the group members found family members of drug addicts indifferent to the possibility of successful treatment of the addiction. According to Taimoor most parents argued that as long as their child was not causing any trouble they did not care. Medical facts and religious reasoning were used by the group to convince them otherwise.

In all the youth group met close to 45 people. Gradually the affected community members began trusting the young people and showed interest in their project.

The group members also spoke to addicts personally and tried to convince them to kick the habit. After a lot of visits 8 drug addicts expressed their desire to sober up.

Support

Besides visiting families of addicts the youth group also visited the local public school, Government Degree College. According to Taimoor, illegal drugs use by high school students is rampant.

The young people discussed their project with the principal of the school who expressed enthusiasm and promised his full support. And so began the second leg of the awareness campaign: high school students of Muzzafargarh. The awareness sessions also included documentary videos which highlighted the perils of drug abuse.

The group also convinced the school administration to declare the entire school a no smoking zone. The principal of the school and some staff members promised to contribute a portion of their monthly pay check to the group to pay for medication and other expenses.

Recovery

Finally, with 8 people committed to kick their habit the group approached several doctors and medical staff. They managed to convince a few of them to volunteer their time and expertise in detoxification and rehabilitation.

To pay for the medication the group made use of the money collected from the teaching staff of Government Degree College. To raise additional funds they embarked on a scrap collection drive through the entire district. When people found out why they were collecting scrap they happily donated unneeded possessions.

By selling scrap to local junkyards the group was able to raise enough money to meet their expenses and purchase the needed medication.

Round 2

After the treatment of the eight patients ended the group members made a point of visiting them daily to support them through the period of rehabilitation. They have also convinced the recovering addicts to accompany them on their tours to the high school and to participate in their awareness sessions.

Taimoor and his friends now plan to follow the same sustainable model to help other members of the community who suffer from drug addiction.

It takes two – Active Citizens open up new avenues in Multan

As young people growing up in Suraj Miani – a neighbourhood of Multan – Abdul Rahman and Shumaila Bibi always felt the absence of IT training institutes in the area. The nearest computer training institute is 7 – 8 kilometres away and the nearest internet café is 3 kilometres away.

Perhaps the absence of a technology institute is felt more acutely by young girls and women of the area. Multan being a conservative city, relatively more avenues for personal growth are open to men than women. This includes opportunities for higher education and professional courses. After graduating high school most women face added restrictions by their families, and unnecessarily venturing out of homes is frowned upon.

At the Active Citizens training that they attended Abdul Rahman and Shumaila proposed a facility where the residents of Suraj Miani – especially women could benefit from technology education and brush up their language skills.

 A local NGO offered them space in their offices to hold the classes, and the youth group managed to arrange 4 computers for the classes – including their personal lap top computers. Now came the hard part: convincing parents of young girls to let them attend the free computer and English classes.

Abdul Rahman and Shumaila arranged two separate meetings: one at the Union Council head quarters for the male members of the community, and one for women and young girls at the residence of a community member. Besides these community meetings the young Active Citizens also took part in a door-to-door awareness campaign to recruit students for the coaching centre.

When asked about the problems faced by the youth group, Abdul Rahman responded that: “the biggest hurdle faced by us was convincing parents of young girls to let them attend the classes. The area we live in is very conservative and women stepping out of their houses are frowned upon”.

Ultimately 90 women and 25 men signed up for the computer classes. As a bonus the young women were also offered and English language course taught by Shumaila while Abdul Rahman along with another volunteer teaches the computer classes. The students are tested after the course is completed and successful candidates are awarded a certificate by the youth group. The ages of the students range from 14 years to 23 years and classes are held four days a week.

Besides acquiring technical skills the training also gives the students the confidence to pursue more challenging opportunities. A clear indication of this is the fact that 3 girls after successfully attending the computer course managed to get jobs in private schools where they teach Microsoft Word and Excel to young female students. This has also inspired other women to sign up for the classes.

Prevention through Awareness

There are certain things that we associate with the summer season. For people living in colder areas there is the promise of warm, lazy days; for people who live in a warm climate it means that their days will only get warmer and longer. In Pakistan we have come to associate newer and less pleasant things of late: the monsoon rains that will flood fields of farmers and drive people from their homes, and the return of the dreaded dengue fever. 

Each dengue epidemic in Pakistan has been worse than the previous one: more than 300 people lost their lives to the dengue virus and more than 14,000 were affected by it in 2011. A group of young people fresh out of an Active Citizens training teamed together to launch a dengue awareness campaign targeted at young people and children in Lahore.

The first part of the project was rolled out at the Punjab University Laboratory school in April this year. Group members briefed the students on the dengue virus, its symptoms, how it can be transmitted, and what precautionary measures to use. The students were also added to the discussion their knowledge on the subject, and stories and jokes. At the conclusion of the activity flyers were distributed among the students who were encouraged to spread the awareness on the deadly disease.

In May the group held an awareness campaign at the Pakistan Society for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled (PSRD). Along with information about the virus and precautionary measures, a drawing competition was also arranged for children at the rehabilitation centre. Children enrolled in therapy sessions at the centre also participated with quotes, stories, and songs.

The efforts of the group did not stop here; they held similar interactive awareness sessions at Nasheman and Dar-ul-Mussarat – both institutes for people living with mental and physical disabilities. At both institutes they were welcomed with enthusiasm. Says one group member: “we went to make these children aware of how to save a life, but (instead) we learnt from them that how to live a life”.

How to save a life

Ubaid Malik is a resident of Pind Dadan Khan – a town not too far from the hauntingly picturesque salt mines of Khewra. Although Pind Dadan khan lies at a distance of only 200 Kilometres from Islamabad the atmosphere that prevails there is predominantly rural. Growing up in Pind Dadan Khan Ubaid witnessed first-hand the unjust and discriminatory practices that are woven into the rural fabric. “I grew up in a place which is unmatched in backwardness of thought and where a high level of illiteracy prevails” says Ubaid.

An unfortunate reality that is part and parcel of the rural life is the high mortality rate due to inadequate medical facilities, especially true for women – a fact that Ubaid refused to accept. In search of ways to improve the deplorable medical facilities he approached several community leaders, but instead of encouragement he mostly found disinterest.

Refusing to give up Ubaid found his way to an Active Citizens training organised by a partner organization of the British Council. Here he got an opportunity to polish his skills for starting fruitful dialogue and involving others in the struggle to achieve mutual goals. Most importantly though he formed lasting friendships with other like-minded young people.

With a strengthened belief in his abilities Ubaid approached the problem anew. He convinced a few of his friends to join his cause, and together they came up with a brilliant idea to help members of their community: a database of blood types. Says one group member: “although we did not have sufficient resources for to set up a proper blood bank, but we though that at least we could compile a record of people and their blood groups”. The thought behind this was the high number of people that pass away because they did not receive a blood transfusion in time.

The young people made contact with the local health department and pitched their idea to them. Their response? The concerned officials agreed to lend the youth group – dubbed the Active Involvement and Motivation (AIM) youth group – the services of two members of the medical staff for a fee of Rs. 1,000 for each blood group awareness camp they organised. After following this model a few of times the youth group began to feel the inevitable brunt of bearing the expenses. According to Ubaid: “we quickly came to realize that we could not continue to set up these camps (using our own resources)…not for the number of people we wanted to reach”.

 Ubaid and his friends next visited the health department of Jehlum, the district that Pind Dadan Khan is a part of. The officials there were so impressed with the group’s social action project that they took necessary steps in order to ensure that the young people receive the cooperation of their town’s health department, free of cost.

To date Ubaid and his group have organised nearly 30 health camps. Their database now boasts names, addresses, and blood types of 3,200 individuals. When blood samples are collected forms are also circulated which inquire whether the individual is willing to donate their blood in case of emergencies. According to Ubaid nearly half the people in their database have agreed to donate blood if required.

Not one to be satisfied by what he has achieved, Ubaid recently completed an Active Citizen’s Training of Facilitators (TOF) and now plans to help other young people achieve their dream of making their communities a better place to live through positive social action.

The Gypsy School

Ramshackle gypsy settlements are a common sight in nearly all cities of Pakistan. With no fixed occupations and no land, members of the gypsy community live in uninhabited areas till they are forced to leave by the local authorities. Gypsy children are often seen begging for money or food at road sides, shops, and in residential areas. Gypsies have always lived on the fringes of society and are usually viewed with suspicion.

But these children like all children are entitled to education. This realization did not escape Faisal Idrees, a young Active Citizen from Multan. Faisal decided to do something in his capacity to rectify this situation.

Faisal enlisted the help of two of his friends and together they formed a youth group to facilitate the provision of education to as many gypsy children as they could. According to Faisal: “Every parent wants to send their children to school but most people, and especially marginalized communities do not know about Article 25 A and the right to education”.

Another problem that these young people faced was the sad fact that the money these children collect by begging contributes to their family’s income. And so parents with no fixed source of income can sometimes perceive education of their children as a threat to their family’s well being.

Faisal and his friends decided to set up a make-shift school in the gypsy camp and started a door-to-door campaign to convince parents to let their children attend it. In the beginning this seemed to be an uphill task as not most parents were reluctant to loose the income brought in by their children, and they also viewed the strangers with suspicion.

But despite the resistance the three young people resolved to march on ahead; by the third meeting with the community members they were allowed to set up their ‘school’.  Since they did not receive any support from the gypsy community in terms of a place to hold classes in, they started teaching in the first free space they could find. On the first day of class 4 children showed up. Gradually the number of students started increasing. By the end of the first week they were teaching 22 gypsy children. By the end of the year the school had 138 students.

According to Faisal, initially the group members pooled in their money to buy the necessary supplies to run their school, but as the number of children steadily increased these meagre funds started proving insufficient. To overcome this Faisal and his friends came up with a simple yet smart solution: they met with principals of different private and public schools of the area and convinced them to put up a box in the school where students could donate used books and notebooks. At the end of each week members of the youth group visit these schools to collect the donated books and stationary items. 

Notebooks which have been filled using pencils are erased and made ready for use again. And books which cannot be used are sold and the proceeds are used to buy pencils and other stationary items. 

Faisal and his friends are now allowed to use empty tents to hold their classes while the tenants are away but have to empty it once they return. The irony is not lost on the youth group who have dubbed their school the Gypsy School. 

The youth group has enjoyed other successes besides providing these children with basic education. One of these is convincing parents to admit their children to the local public school. So far 28 children have been enrolled in this school. Consequently these children have stopped begging and now lead a much healthier life style.

Children attending the Gypsy School are also encouraged to give up begging through stories and activities. The group of young Active Citizens hopes to dissuade as many children from begging as possible and to facilitate their admission into schools.

Faisal and his friends now aim to reach at least 300 children by the end of this year.

Back to life

Back to Life is a Social Action Project started by young Active Citizens from Lahore. And they could not have chosen a more apt title for the project. This group of young individuals chose to work in an area that is often overlooked by others: young children suffering from various stages of cancer. It takes a certain amount of empathy to think about and feel for ill children – tucked away in some ward of a hospital, out of sight, but not out of reach.

The young people who decided to work with these children are mostly students or young professionals. But they decided to take time out from their busy schedules and break their normal routines because they felt that children are important…and unoriginal as it may sound, the truth is that children are the future – suffering from a terminal disease or not.

The Children’s Hospital in Lahore has an entire wing dedicated to an oncology ward which is divided into sections corresponding roughly to the ages of the children that it houses. The group of young people wanted to cheer up these children and replace their boredom with fun and educational activities – what one group member, Usman refers to as ‘Edutainment’ – a combination of education and entertainment; and so they decided to tailor their activities according to the ages of the children.

For the younger children the group plays cartoons and animated films that are projected on the walls of their ward. According to another group member the children wait all week for the weekend when they get to watch cartoons, and laugh, applaud, and cheer together. For these children the group members were able to secure colouring books and colouring pencils free of cost from different NGOs as well.

The older, more mature children proved to be more of a challenge for the group, but they were able to capture their attention through regular visits. The group members not only tutor the kids in material that other children their age learn in school, but do it in such a fun and engaging manner that a bond has formed between them.

The connections that these young Active Citizens and hospitalized children have formed also has a down side: the group members have to accept the fact that the children they are working with are being treated for different forms of cancer – which is a potentially fatal disease. According to one member of the group sometimes they come to the hospital only to find out that a child has passed away; this can be a jarring lesson in the facts of life for the sick and healthy alike. But what keeps them going is the knowledge that for however short a time they have succeeded in bringing joy and laughter in the life of a child.

Tipu Sultan Public School

Pakistan’s public school system is in a shambles. Not enough public schools exist in the country and when the public is provided with a government-funded school, the quality of education provided isn’t always up to the mark. The Rizwana Group decided to start a primary school in Sahiwal that would provide education to out of school children of the community. The school is named the “Tipu Sultan Public School” and offers classes from preparatory to the fifth grade.
Tipu Sultan Public School is not just a run of the mill school; it focuses on providing a quality education to all students. Traditional rote-learning methods have been abandoned in favor of teaching students basic concepts and providing them with a clearer understanding of the material.

The group launched an awareness campaign about out of school children and the benefits of educating them. Thanks to their efforts the group was able to attract a considerable number of volunteers to participate in the project. Presently all the teachers are volunteers. The group also raises funds to provide as many free books and school bags to needy children as possible.
The children attending the school come from a diverse background. The students vary from children whose parents can afford to pay for their education to children whose parents do not have the money to put them through primary school. With 150 children enrolled the school provides education completely free of cost to 15 of them.

One key goal accomplished by the group members was convincing parents who had never sent their children to a school before, to enroll their children in the Tipu Sultan Public School. Most of the children that attend the school have never attended school before. Luckily their first school happens to be run by a group of people who view providing education not as a job, but as a responsibility.

Traditions that need to be defied

Progress can be defined in a number of ways, but some that come to mind immediately are: moving forward, adapting to circumstances, and evolving. It is surprising then that the way we teach children in primary schools and what they are taught have remained more or less unchanged over the years. This lack of progress is what motivated a youth group in Multan to start a Social Action Project (SAP) to help rectify the problem.

The group is named The Janbaz Youth Group and their SAP aims to correct education at its very root – primary school. The SAP was conceived and is being led by Noshaba who is a trained psychologist. The group holds the view that the only way to move forward is to motivate children to do better in school and keep them interested in the material being taught. A key contributing factor to this is implementing a fun and interesting way of teaching in primary schools.

So far the group has managed to arrange four training sessions for primary school teachers focussing on modern teaching methods and techniques. These sessions were attended by 28 teachers in all. Typical areas of discussion in these training sessions are traditional teaching methods that are still being implemented in primary schools and their limitations, and advantages of adopting modern teaching methods.

Progress can be defined in a number of ways, and one of them is being brave enough to challenge established conventions when there is a better way to do some thing. The SAP started by The Janbaz Youth Group does just this – it is a step taken by a group of young people to replace inefficient and dated teaching methods with newer and better ones, it is a step in the right direction; it is a step towards progress.

Young blood drives change

Natural calamities can rarely be predicted; in fact the only thing certain about a natural disaster is the uncertainty. Since the when and where of a natural disaster can at best be only guessed, it is in every community’s interest to be as well prepared as possible to cope with it if and when it occurs.

In the past few years Pakistan has experienced the devastation that natural disasters like earthquakes and floods bring with them. We have learnt to appreciate the value of responding to emergencies efficiently, and the consequences of not delivering rescue services in a timely manner.

Bearing this in mind, three Active Citizens from Bahawalpur organized a one day blood collection drive. They named their social action group “Umeed” – an Urdu word, which can be loosely translated to “hope”. According to the group members – Ashar, Sumera, and Arooj, instead of totally relying on foreign aid in the event of a calamity, efforts should be made to develop a culture of volunteering and self-help.

In keeping with the spirit of collectivism – the driving philosophy behind the social action project, the group was successful in persuading health care professionals including doctors and nurses to devote some of their time and be a part of the blood drive.

In their bid to spread awareness among young people, the group along with other volunteers visited campuses of various local universities and colleges where they presented their idea to the students and staff, and were able to attract a number of donors.

Although their project was a small one, and the quantity of blood collected was not huge, but thanks to the efforts of the Umeed social action group, the chances of finding blood for an urgent transfusion in Bahawalpur have got better.

Talking the talk and walking the walk

The communication gap between people who subscribe to different faiths, come from different cultures, and belong to different social classes can be a major hurdle for young people who want to interact with each other, explore other cultures, and learn about different religions. Young people living in rural areas are especially aware of the fact that they don’t have a platform to communicate and consequently remove misconceptions and move closer.

Youth for Peace is a group of Active Citizens from Bahawalpur who started a Social Action Project (SAP) to promote interfaith harmony. According to the group members, they felt that they had to play their part in enabling young people of their area to overcome social barriers and reach out to one another. In their own words: “we are trying our level best to provide a platform for people who really don’t know about different religions and cultures. Due to our efforts and hard work we have found some success in promoting interfaith harmony among different religions and cultures”.

To promote their cause the group organized a “peace walk” for the students of their city. The group visited different schools and presented their views on interfaith harmony. They were successful in convincing officials and students from different schools to take part in the peace walk.

A dialogue between different groups within the community was also organized by Youth for Peace. The purpose of the dialogue was to bring together community members from different religions under one roof, where they could talk with one another candidly and openly.
Through the dialogue the group also managed to remove certain misconceptions about their SAP. According to a group member, one point stressed time and again by Youth for Peace was: “Interfaith harmony does not mean the adoption of customs and traditions of other religions but it really means that we should not view other religions with prejudice and should respect them whole heartedly”.

Thanks to the efforts of these Active Citizens members of different social groups got a chance to sit down together and talk in a way they had not before. Hopefully they learned something new about one another along the way and some left with the realization that no matter how different people are, they still have a lot in common.