A worldwide appeal by Dr. Awab Alvi for upgrading the pediatric ward in Shikarpur. He takes you through a walk-thru tour of the Pediatric ward at the Civil Hospital Shikarpur to show the deplorable the conditions that have been aggravated due to a large influx of flood related victims into the area. The ward looks after only the severe cases, upon our visit there were three natal wards a total of 20 beds and it held a capacity of over 100 children [PICS] stacked within it has been fortunate that some generous donor had installed airconditioners so as to make this barely livable, if you were to walk out of the rooms, the stench in the heat and the stench in the hallway is unimaginable, toilets down the hall are over flooding beyond belief.

This post has a video enclosed, please click through to watch the video

Team members of the OffroadPakistan had a visit to the area and desperately feel the need to make a small difference at least in totally changing the landscape of this pediatric ward, naturally we need help and assistance in making this dream a reality, our effort is to highlight a plea, after which we need funds and expertise in saving lives of these gentle little kids. Dreaming big we could hope to revamp the entire Civil Hospital in this area as a long lasting measure for this impoverished city.

DONATE at SARELIEF.com

This post has a video enclosed, please click through to watch the video

Faisal Kapadia and Dr. Awab Alvi head to Sukkur and Shikarpur along with offroadpakistan & SA Relief to deliver relief to the affectees in the region. During the trip they produced the 22nd episode of the Laidback Show

Starting this third flood relief mission, yet again we will document it live via GPS and also CoveritLive. I believe that is the only way to share with the world what we see and hear on the ground.

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On return after our first relief effort to Sukkur two weeks back we had several meetings amongst the core group of volunteers adopting a long term medical relief and rehabilitation strategy, however during the subsequent week we continued to receive urgent demands for help emanating from many of the inundated villages of Sukkur and Shikarpur

Thus in response to these pleas we embarked yet again on the 21st of August with a convoy of 8 trucks laden with relief goods of which seven were carrying relief hampers while one carried the load of a hundred tents accompanied by their donor. The convoy consisted of 7 cars and we made our way to Sukkur at around 5 pm passing through Hyderabad and Kotri which was slowly becoming inundated with flood water as the water levels had considerably increased since our first relief mission a week earlier.

Our staging area & warehouse was arranged by Taimur Mirza through the local MNA Agha Taimur located on the main Shikarpur – Sukkur link road. We immediately offloaded our seven trucks of relief goods into this warehouse and with the help of the U.N coordination center in Sukkur dispatched the 100 tents to a PAF-managed IDP relief campsite on the Sukkur Bypass road

Day 1

The first night a few of our volunteers oversaw the construction of the 100 tents in the PAF enclave in an organized manner, the slow process continued the next three days and we ensured our constant presence at the site ensuring the construction to our total satisfaction. Returning home late that night to our accommodations in Sukkur we hit the bed immediately preparing to start early the next day for distribution with the help of smaller hired datsuns pick-ups. The reason for taking datsuns was because the larger trucks could not be taken into the deeper areas of Essani, and other inundated villages which were being pointed out by the accompanying leader

Day 2

We left at 9am the next morning and after a short recon of the areas we were planning on distributing in, set off in two teams one led by Atif Ashraf and the other by Awab Alvi to different villages totally inundated by water, this place has been so remote that no food had reached for a couple of days, we were greeted with eager people anxious to get this aid and it is our estimate that we may have been successful in providing relief to over 500 families waiting in desperation.

Next we liaised with three NGO’s, first is a Karachi based school organization called Reflections who has rented houses in order to provide shelter in Shikarpur and Sukkur housing a large number of pregnant women and their children and are definitley doing a splendid job on the ground, We also liaised with an NGO called Hands who is running quite a number of tent-cities around Kandkot, Jacobabad, Larkana, Shikarpur and Sukkur. The third NGO also is a Karachi based organization run by a few Karachi based architects called Karachi Relief Trust. All three organizations were thoroughly evaluated by us and were seen to be doing a genuine hard work on the ground and dservedly needed to be supported, we then dispatched a sizable quantity of relief hampers into their camps sites to augment their depleting food resources.

After accounting for these relief distribution we still had two datsuns full of relief supplies and three datsuns worth of water bottles left for handing out. We ran a few sorties of water-bottle distribution along the highway passing these out to many thirsty people who under the scorching sun on roads of Shikarpur

Day 3

While doing water sorties the day earlier one of our team members Rehan Bandukda helped identify a school run by SSG&C, they had 1600 registered IDP families inside in squalid conditions. We visited this establishment with 2 datsuns of water and two datsuns of food hampers, we also had over 700 packets of ready to eat sheermal, milk and khajur packets all of which was quickly picked up by the residents of this camp.

As this distribution in schools was going on, two of our team members Nabil Jangda and Atif Ashraf seeing the dilapidated conditions in the area also ordered fresh cooked of dal and roti packets for 700 people which we then continued to distribute till 5pm despite our planned departure at 2pm which would have allowed us to traverse the National Highway during the daylight hours, but this last minute distribution had us running late, we finally got done by 5pm and headed for Karachi reaching home by 11:30 pm. Reaching safe and sound, this last minute decision to feed another 700 people was well worth the inconvenience

As expected the on ground difficulties included extreme heat (48-50C) and a fluid situation of refugees settlements and their needs forced us to improvise on the ground practically making us come up with a new strategy at every puzzle. Gladly we had the mettle to make this happen on the spot. The overall security situation was also a lot riskier then we faced last week, in Sukkur as we were one of the first people to arrive back then, the towns are now littered with rioters, professional con men posing as NGO’s as well as political misfits of every variety out to make a fast buck. By the grace of god I am happy to claim we negotiated the various pitfalls with success. We may have stumbled but we did not fall!!

Our future plans are now being formulated and should revolve around supporting some genuine aid teams working on the ground in a long term basis augmenting with medical and rehabilitation requirements which we can possibly address

Pictures from our Flood Relief mission to Shikarpur this weekend in conjunction with OffroadPakistan and SARelief.com

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If there is anything the government should learn from this flood, it is to take education and women empowerment more seriously. The enormous task of taking care of so many IDPs iz only magnified many fold by lack of a good base. If these IDPs were a little better educated it would have been so much easier for the govt. to house them. How can a mother take care of 10-15 children? It is simply not possible. Corroborating Dr Nighats experience when told about family planning theyre responses were ’have you no fear of Allah’ or ’our husbands want it-they beat us’ Many females do understand but the men dont.

A woman came to one of our camps today asking for birth control pills an amazing happening, to our shame- we had none with us - I wonder if medical teams should carry IM depoprovera-council them and administer?

We went to 3 camps today All of them were tent villages

• it is good that people are being moved from schools, not all of the desks will become firewood
• please make a note that after the floods are over much help will be

Need to refunctionalize the schools

We saw suspected cases of Malaria and Typhoid today -this may be the next major problem.  Conjunctivitis and skin infections account for a great proportion of the complaints. At times these occur simultaneously in the same child.  We went to an army camp today too. It waz well managed, organized clean and ppl were well provided for-all except medical treatment

On the way to Sukkur a mob attacked our pick up truck and stole many boxes of medicines -running alongside our moving vehicle.  People have accumulated along the sides of the highway between sukkur and khairpur- and I cannot curse enough people coming in big cars throwing stuff out of the windows- what are they thinking how is that helping anyone but their own conscious-they are creating serious problems

We met with about 35 lady health care workers today for 2hours

• That is when I realized that my grand idea of an lhw visiting every camp was too Naive – last nights meeting had many false promises lady healthcare workers are a great force- underpaid, exhausted n downsighted by local hospital doctors-this force is only acheiving 25% of its potential

The training session based around teaching them to teach and ensure

• diarrhea prevention
• ors
• malaria prevention
• high risk preg notification
• general hygeine

Feeling a greater need I thought it prudent to turn the training session into a motivational session- we talked interactively abt how they are so important and vital- how they save lives, I told them I respect them much to be working so well with such minimal compensation

We learnt that they do not go to their duties- I hope our exchange atleast made them feel better abt themselves and motivated them to show up at work tomorrow

Many changes are needed- at all levels, the health system 4rm the basic level to the tertiary level is in shambles- this will not change because of a flood

I am confused about training other LHWs here and in sukkur- is it worth it? If they go to every camp it would be but that wont happen There are almost 1500 of them in sukkur and khairpur but why they cant go to the 280 camps is a mathetical conundrum stressing the benefits of handwashing with soap multiple times brought us a promise of adding a bar to their rations.

Speaking of rations we learnt the world food program’s rations consist of wheat and oil – thats it! -I wonder how retarded can one be ‘oh the staple food of pakistan iz wheat so giving them just wheat would be enough’

Meds in need are

• amoxcillin
• augumentin
• eye drops
• zinc syrup
• ors
• multi vit tablets
• skin ointment

Tomorrow we go to kodgi

I strongly maintain that the best thing that any disaster relief cell can do in a developing country is education and women empowerment

Regards

Syed Nabeel Zafar

MBBS, MPH
Instructor (Research)
Department of General Surgery
Aga Khan University.

This post was submitted by Dr. Syed Nabeel Zafar.

As customary to our Relief trips to the flooded areas, Faisal Kapadia and I will be live GPS tracking and Live Tweeting all along the way. Our plan is to depart Karachi on the morning of Sunday 22nd August accompany a convoy of 8 relief good trucks, be joined by 7-8 accompanying vehicles with around 25 odd volunteers to head to Shikarpur. We hope to offload all the goods in a secure warehouse in Shikarpur and from there strategically disburse the relief to deserved people in the area.

As different from the previous CoverItLive we launched last time, our emphasis is to concentrate / share tweets from only the people taking part in this particular mission and the readers will not be bothered or overwhelmed by the other twitter chatter.

GPS Tracking will be maintained for record sake, to be transmitted every 5-10 minutes from our phones


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Dr. Nighat Shah’s brief about our trip:

Khairpur at this moment is housing huge bulk of displaced people from Larkana, Jacobabad, Shikarpur, and many smaller villages like thul, ghouspur etc. The registered displaced people are more than 50,000. Around 120 camps are housing people in small clusters. These range from 250-300 people in smaller schools to 5000-8000 in bigger schools.

In all camps, the majority is of children and the  statistics are mind boggling! In a camp at Ghari Mori, district Khairpur,  housing 280 people, there were 44 men, 67 women and 169 children. Almost all children are sick, ranging from stunted growth, severe malnourishment, diarrhoea and skin problems. Almost all women are anemic, weak, malnourished, perpetually pregnant or breast feeding, and the sad part is that there is no milk but the baby is still latched, always! More than 20-25 percent are pregnant.

Brief review of our activities- Day 1

As a team comprising of a retired pediatrician (working at SOS villages), a local gynecologist / obstetrician, 2 soon to be graduates from AKU and I, a recent Masters in Public Health graduate from Harvard and an instructor in the Dept. of General Surgery, AKU, Karachi, visited displaced peoples camps in District Khairpur.

We left around 7 a.m. for the visit but worked early in the morning to organize the medicines available in boxes so prescription would be faster. The hospitality of our hosts is of tremendous. I had to have two cups of tea in the morning (that is more than I drink in a year :-). They do not let you work until you are well provided for and do not stop asking you to drink up and eat up.

Our first stop was the APWA school where around 400 people mostly from Thul are housed. It was nice to see displaced people having shelter from rain and the hot weather and a place to rest. The schools have lots of open space so the camps are not very congested. However, this is coming at the cost of education of the local children. Schools are closed.

I hope alternate efforts are planned – The IDPs are not suiting the schools well and the furniture and facilities are taking a toll.

There were no toilet facilities available – the school’s toilet was clogged so the openess of the grounds was being used as a substitute. Upon inquiry we found out that sanitation work is underway and they just havent reached this school yet. Yes, we saw pit latreens in all of the other places we visited today.

It was also nice to see that handpumps were being constructed – almost all of the camps we visited had them. How potable that water is something requiring thought. We plan on taking a few samples with us back to khi to be tested – we have to keep in mind the arsenic incident in Bangladesh.

But atleast that water is fit for washing and showering and we did see lots of showering as we went along. The problem was the choice of place to construct the hand pump – it was not rare to see water having standing on the ground. No drainage was thought of while contructing these – we provided these observations to authorities who instructed those planting these pumps to do something about the standing water. Standing water is an issue that needs to be taken care of urgently.

This camp was clean, the headmistress was paying the kids to clean up – but the garbage was being collected at one place in a heap – no city truck ever came to take this away – and as is the garbage disposal system of most of Pakistan – this garbage was scheduled to be burnt.

As mentioned before – problems are not only due to the flood – but the baseline itself is a low health state.

We divided ourself in two teams and began seeing all kinds of patients – women , children and men. I was surprised to see that even the men were so anemic – women and children always are, this is the first time I saw such a high proportion of men being anemic. Gastroenteritis, skin conditions (scabies, impitigo, fungals) were expectedly quite common. There was high volume of URTI and LRTI prescriptions were mostly, amox, cipro, ORS, vitamins, benzylbenzoate, FeSO4. However, a feeling of helplessness was frequently encountered when we encounter patients with epilepsy, angina, Colon Ca (most likely), Nephrotic (most likely), Hypertension.

What does one do about these patients in a camp? we tried sending them to hospitals but common complaints were,

‘they prescribe meds that we cannot afford’, ‘ we cannot affort tests’, ‘doctors are never available’, ‘doctors do not treat us’.

Some of these complaints are not appropriate. Many had cannulas in their hands, meaning they were going to hospitals regularly and receiving IV fluids – sent back to the camps for the night to return the next day (not an ideal way to deal with things – but a good way to deal with the high volume of patients and lack of resources).

The teachers of the school were a huge force – educated women who understood and spoke Urdu. They were coming  everyday on duty, however, they were not doing much. We encouraged them to teach the children running about (atleast teach poems etc.) We encouraged them enforce handwashing, general hygeine and cleanliness. They are definitely a force to be utilized in the right way – dispensing ORS and maybe vaccination?

Of mention is a vaccinator who was idly sitting at the school. We asked her to administer polio to all children and TT to all pregnant women (she actually had those vaccines), but her reply was, ‘but they are pregnant’ to the TT request. We explained to her what she can do – her response was ‘acha’. I hope she does some vaccinations tomorrow (she needs to bring the shots from storage).

Our next stop was Salimabad.

The condition there was terrible. Almost 50% of the displaced people there had watery diarrhea. We sent two patients immediately to the hospital in our ambulance. In one of the rooms was a dead body of a 20 year old female who died of watery stools. She had died in the morning. They were around 250  people and had been staying there for 10 days. What is this besides cholera?

I certainly fear more deaths will occur here.

Our treatment was based on IMCI – ciproflox for 3 days and ORS.

We immediately got them to fill three water coolers (half of what they had) and filled these with ORS. We adviced everyone with diarrhea to immediately drink plenty from those coolers. ORS is life saving in these situations! Handwashing with soap was emphasized. We heard of another neonatal death in another one of the camps. Of note: In this camp there was no one incharge – these people were just brought here and left on their own – there was no one there to look after them, but it seems like they were supplied with water and food. There were pit latrines made by UNICEF, however, feces was piled in these pit latrines. The people of camp said that someone used to come everyday to maintain this latrines but after a ‘foreigner’ came and looked at them no one has come back even once. The last visit was 5 days ago.

An appeal to those deploying the pit latrins. Please educate people on how to use them and maintain them – the latrines are really good and are an amazing help but that benefit is severely stunted if feces is lying open to the millions of flies buzzing around.

From there on we went from camp to camp repeating the same. Taking a look at water sanitation and hygeine and seeing if we could do something, treating patients, educating on handwashing with soap and improving health and hygiene awareness. We have brought soap with us and will be distributing it tomorrow. We understood the issue of intestinal worms is an endemic problem , however we had no medicines for that purpose. Instead of asking about we thought we would buy Albendazole and give stat doses to everyone we enounter. We aim to deworm all camps.

Many organizations are setting up medical camps in various camps – we faced a bit of disorganization today and some time was wasted in looking for camps without doctors. We are meeting with the EDO health tonight and hope to resolve this issue and make full use of available resources

What is needed:

• ORS, Amoxcillin, Vit B complex, scabies and deworming medicines.
• Water jugs and utensilts to make ORS in  (cant put it in the hand pump).

Education material

• pictographs of flies sitting on feces and going and sitting on hands and food.
• benefits of handwashing (pictographs).

Health and Hygiene workers (more important than doctors at the moment.)

• They must be sindhi speaking
• LHWs, medical students, nurses, doctors  (any educated person with a bit of training)
• Need to promote and ensure hand washing with soap (provision of soap)
• availability of ORS (made – not only powder) and education to use it in case of diarrhea. As expected we got the sense that people were not satisfied with just ORS – they need to be explained the benefits of this and encouraged to NOT DELAY ORS. Cholera is a killer and it has already begun.
• getting rid of stagnant water

Note: there is not much need of doctors in the camps at the moment. But local hospitals are understaffed and in need of trained personnel and equipment. There are many many lessons to be learnt from Bangladesh. We should make use of the experience, expertise and material available there.

Food was not a problem in the camps we visited today. Although they found the food too spicy.

But there are a number of people in tents (not schools). They crowded around us expecting food. They had been left there with no one to supervise them. The local government is extending us great support and we also crossed paths with high officials in the field a number of times who were doing visits and trying to solve the numerous problems.

Signing out for today

Syed Nabeel Zafar

MBBS, MPH
Instructor (Research)
Department of General Surgery
Aga Khan University.

Both Awab and I recently went on separate trips to Kot Addu and Sukkur, into just some of the areas affected by the flood. I think that by now, the scale of the disaster is hitting people- even Ban Ki Moon’s statement sent everyone scurrying for ideas and strategies to deal with the flood. The food relief truck I went with was organized by Saad Sarfraz Sheikh, an inspiring photographer and friend, who pulled in food through donations, and had someone arrange for a truck to transport it all to Kot Addu. I must also mention that even now, Saad’s father remains trapped at the PARCO refinery in the Kot Addu area.

I realize that we’re going through the greatest natural disaster that we’ve gone through- ever, and what’s more important, is that the world is realizing this as well. Rather than going into the usual analysis-paralysis of why the floods were so bad this year, or why the politicians are so indifferent, this article candidly shares what Awab and I have learned from our short trips into the field (Awab is more experienced with relief work, since he also helped out with earthquake and army-operation refugees earlier). I’m also cowriting this with him so that we share experiences from different affected floodzones. If you are working in Balochistan or Khyber Pakhtunwa or any of the many, many regions that we aren’t please get in touch or just write your thoughts out as a comment. No time for formalities here.

Normally, a social worker would write this, but I wanted us, normal people with no training, to put out thoughts together on what worked, and what didn’t work based on our experiences. Why? Because the majority of Pakistanis who can help- are average people like Awab, Saad, myself and you.

NOTES/ OBSERVATIONS

Khurram Siddiqi: Kot Addu

• I’ve found that in the almost utter absence of a functioning government disaster management authority, citizens are taking matters into their own hands. No independence day has ever meant more since 1947, than this one. We’re all in this together, and pooling resources and funds like never before.
• Work with someone who has already done this in the past. This is not Pakistan’s first disaster, so there are bound to be people who’ve done this before, and have lessons to share; usually in the form of logistical efficiency.
• Empathy over sympathy – action over emotion. For the most part, I saw that people in the cities- removed from the flooding, are eager to satisfy their personal grievance by purchasing loads of food supplies. Though commendable, before we set out to help others, I think we need to take stock of what is really required, and choose a partner in the field to work with. Too many people seem to be generating stockpiles of supplies that though necessary, become burdensome because of distribution. Furthermore, because of the lack of coordination between relief providers, we might end up providing too much of one thing, and not enough of another. We saw this firsthand. For example, our truck carried a great deal of onions, potatoes and flour, but no anti-malarial medicine.
• This is a relief trip, and not a chance to be Indiana Jones: do not take this as an adventure trip. Make this about the people you want to help, and not about soothing the restless ‘activist’ in you. For example, Saad and I are both avid photographers (though I just shoot- he photographs), and there came points for both of us where we realized that in an effort to document and ensure that food was being distributed to the right people, the volunteers we were working with began to feel that this was becoming a slight PR campaign. It’s embarrassing to admit, but you need to be humbled in order to realize it.
• Ensure that what you’re taking out to the field is pre-packaged, preferably as ‘family packs’. With the help of your chosen relief partners, establish the quantities or sizes of packages required, meaning how much of what item they intend to distribute, depending on estimated family size.
• Someone posted this on their Facebook page: “Pack this with the expectation that it shall be dropped from 80 feet”. Brilliant piece of advice; you should aim for this even if your food is pre-packaged,
• Aim before you fire. Trucks, on average, cost Rs.20,000 (driver and diesel included one way), for goods that must have totaled about the same. The truck however, had much more space available, which would have been filled of course, had the pace of donations been higher. That said, logistics need to incorporate the incoming sources of funding. I realize again that this stuff sounds natural, but when you’re emotionally charged and want to save lives, you’re usually in 5th gear from the get-go; not the best of ideas. Another thing to consider is that fuel itself is in short supply. Let’s not become a part of the cycle, by burning it inefficiently. I just think we could have packed a lot more in there, before leaving. (But on the flipside, that is also a testament to Saad, who believed in getting the food out ASAP)
• Staying on the truck topic – banners and marks of your organization are probably not the safest of ideas. You could get looted- or you’ll get mobbed at your destination, and might end up distributing your relief supplies in ways you never expected: robbery and/or mobbery.
• The Pakistan Youth Alliance truck just got looted, then had their stuff returned. Some local MPA orchestrated the looting. So, yes- it is about how many big fish you know, and get ON the job as well. But I recommend considering strongly the added fuel costs, if you so desire, of a security detail. (convoy = protection, but convoy = more staff, more fuel)
• One of the main things we came across, even when working with professionals, was who and how to distribute food amongst. By who- I mean tribes, clans, families. I mean it. And if you’re not ready, you’ll discover this all at delivery time when you’re heading out into the field. This may or may not become an issue for you, but please consider where you want to distribute.
• As far as who to give the food to, even with the most skilled of social workers, I think there is always room for error. The question of ‘who is most deserving’ arises. In this case (of floods), it’s a hard call to make. Is it in terms of who lost their house? Who lost the most cattle? Who lost family? There are no solid answers, but make sure you have decided what you want out of the distribution exercise. Though this sounds like it’s about making it convenient for you, it’s actually about you, getting out of your own way, and getting the displaced, what they need, as soon as possible.
• I believe that food is not the thing in shortest supply; medicine is. While we were out in Kot Addu, Mospel (mosquito repellant) was one of our best friends. Anti-malarial medicines, along with gastro-drugs and even anti-venoms, are must haves (though anti-venom requires careful storage and temperature control). I don’t have a complete list of required/ suggested medication, but I’m sure that information won’t be too hard to pin down.
• Apart from food, think about the other things that people might need. For example, women have special needs, and things that pertain to them in particular are rarely considered as relief items. Again, this depends on what the objective of your trip is.
• One thing that really worked well for us was who we partnered with. Zafar Ali of the Pakistan Wetlands Program, Kot Addu office (thank you, Nuzhat Siddiqui for putting us in touch), and Saleem Khan of Saiban Trust (a trusted partner of the PWP’s in Kot Addu) were just amazing to work with. They each had their own teams as well, who we got to know quite well over the short time we spent in the field. It’s tempting for me to go up to Nowshera or down to Sukkur the next time to take aid, but because of the familiarity with the locality, and team- I suggest returning to the same place you’ve been, a few times again before picking a new spot.

Awab Alvi : Sukkur

• Our trip to Sukkur was quite well coordinated, we had two teams one destined for Sukkur while the other was ambitious enough to go to Kashmore.
• There are many nay-sayers scaring the beejeepers out of you, be confident in the belief that you are out to serve, and inshallah God will make way
• We had the support of the local politician who provided us with support on the ground which was a key influencing factor in our decision to go there – I would suggest if possible do arrange for a local contact within the area you are going, if not then remember to travel during the day only and distribute in areas where you have an exit strategy just in case you get mobbed. Meaning dont distribute on a dirt track, a paved metal road provides the vehicle to quickly move away
• Your own security is prime at all times, DO NOT carry a weapon and treat these people with patience and respect, understand at all times they are suffering and are desperate
• We had 3 trucks of goods all were offloaded into a warehouse where we hoped to effectively disburse in an organized manner, this turned out to be a strategic mistake, being located on the main road, we attracted a lot of attention and a mob quickly formed outside
• Having only one entry and exit door to disburse pre-prepared hampers became a problem as mob became impatient to block the door, it became difficult to open the door and when it was open difficult to close it under the pressure of the mob
• During the mob riot that ensued within our warehouse it was not possible to maintain discipline even after a police force was called in, they too were fighting with all their might, we tried to control the use of force but at times had to
• What I would have done differently, if we had a warehouse, id prefer it to be located a little far off the main road. I then would load small consignments on small datsun and head to areas where there was a need. smaller consignments meant less at stake
• If you feel the need to disburse to the settlers on the street, do so in a slow moving vehicle dropping goods intermittently, that too you have the fear of being mobbed, if it gets out of control move quickly away
• If you want you can also drop items from the truck itself, but fear the fact that if you loose control of the mob, the entire truck shall be mobbed within moments and you will loose the entire tranche of relief good that you brought for them, contend to the fact that you came to serve the needy and they all were needy [truly they are]
• Try to distribute by hand going to schools and checking the situation, this requires an local escort, politician etc – and most will regret supporting a political hegemony but on the flip side you get organization and can target the needy with a free hand
• The disbursement of tents was also a little difficult, we requested ID Cards in lieu of each tent where we noted Family # [or Khandan #] so that it prevented members of each family getting multiple tents, we caught 3 people doing the same, we only listed the Khandan number on a sheet of paper and compared every number before giving them the tent
• After the tent was given, we told them to set it up in the designated area and we would return to them the ID card with the promise to supply them each with 2 hamper bags for supporting them for the entire week, this temptation got them busy in putting up the tents in the required location
• In Sukkur there is a desperate need for Tents, Clothes and Medicines, with even a strong request for powder milk.
• Sukkur itself having a few hospitals are facing the pressure for medical support, but it was not so apparent in our two days there, but the need will definitely grow shortly
• I would stress people going for relief to target slightly deeper locations further away from city centers, if you have gone the effort to come this far, go a little bit more and target some area you suppose has not been provided relief
• Prefer to arrive a little 3-4 hours before your truck so you know the geography, refer to Google Maps / or the Pakrelief.crowdmap.com to help identify the location before departure.
• I used GPS tracking with frequent twitter updates and posted abundant pictures on Facebook – do that, not to show-off your work but to inspire others and also update your donors that you have taken the effort to deliver, build a credibility and it shall go a long way. People in Pakistan will trust a doer, dont even for a moment spoil that level of trust, its priceless.
• Go with friends, and distribute with your own hands, there is an immense emotional satisfaction to have given with your own hands, it inspires you to do more for these poor suffering people, compels you to come back and give more
• Remember to look after your belongings strongly advise to leave your wallet inside the car and do not carry large amounts of cash, carry a notebook, in case you want to make a list of people etc, manage the finances to the last rupee and publish it maybe on a Google Doc so that your donors know what was used and what remained, do not reveal the names of your donors as most will not appreciate it.
• Remember to applaud and acknowledge your team, after successful trip it is mostly the credit to team work that brought you through
• Plan housing in advance and not ‘hope’ to get a place nearby
• You are doing this from Zakat fund, your travel, eating and housing is NOT an expense from the donation.

In closing, if you’d like to help out or contribute to the efforts, here are the next trips planned by Saad, and Awab:

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Saad Sarfraz Sheikh

Targeting 100 families this time, I’ve used up all my funds, but still need the following quantities to accomplish the task…

You can either donate these items or fund them by transferring money to my account…

• Water: 300 bottles of 1.5 litre, preferably Aquafina, as it is cheaper than Nestle and Kinley… 300 bottles/35 cartons will cost = Rs 4,900
• Aseel Dates: 100 packs of 500 grammes…. @ Rs85/500grammes = Rs 8,500
• Pulses (assorted): 100kgs @ 150/kg = Rs 15,000
• Atta: 400kg needed, 80 bags of 5kg flour, @ Rs 175/5kg = 14,000
• Sugar: 7 cartons of Ashraf Sugar (2x10kg): 140kg, Rs77/kg= Rs 10,750
• Rice: 138kg, 69x2kg packs, Rs 11,040
• Salt: 14 packs of (800grammes x 3) National Iodized Salt = Rs 637
• Milk: 5 cartons of 24x250ml Dairy Queen, @ Rs 272/carton = Rs 1,360
• Banaspati: 100kg – 100 packs of 1kgs banapati, Rs 75/1kg (Sufi) = 7,500
• Truck transport/logistics: 20,000

Total cost: 93,687

More of Saad’s details:
Drop stuff at 72-FCC, Gulberg 4, anytime before 6pm.
If you put an assortment of goods in a bag, kindly attach a list so that we can distribute equally.
Contact me (Khurram) if you need his bank details- he will be needing money as well.

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Awab Alvi is also embarking on a Second Rescue Mission read more in detail here

MEDIA
Some pictures from the trips:

Kot Addu:

http://picasaweb.google.com/ksiddiqi/FloodRelief#

Sukkur:

http://teeth.com.pk/blog/2010/08/17/pictures-offroadpakistan-takes-flood-relief-to-sukkur

Some videos from the Kot Addu trip:

This post has a video enclosed, please click through to watch the video

This post has a video enclosed, please click through to watch the video

This post has a video enclosed, please click through to watch the video