18 July 2009
Islamic Relief is helping around 97,000 displaced men, women and children in Mardan in the North West of Pakistan. We are providing them and the local community who are taking care of them with clean water, sanitation facilities, healthcare and psychosocial support.
Healthcare
The lack of healthcare is one of the most serious problems facing the displaced and local community. People are suffering from respiratory tract infections, diarrhoea and skin diseases caused by poor sanitation and hygiene conditions.
Islamic Relief health teams are providing free medical care at the Mercy Centres we have established as well as in local health clinics and hospitals. We have also established a free, 24-hour ambulance service to take seriously ill people to hospital.
So far around 4,340 people have benefitted from our health services, most of them women and children.
Water and sanitation
Islamic Relief engineers have found that sanitation facilities need repairing in around 80 per cent of schools and homes where displaced families are sheltering. Around half of the schools where displaced people are living have no functioning latrines.
We are constructing latrines, hand-pumps and washing places in schools and houses to benefit thousands of people both immediately and long term.
Islamic Relief has also conducted hygiene promotion sessions with almost 900 people and we have established six community hygiene committees. These groups are helping to promote good hygiene practices and reduce the spread of diseases.
Child welfare
We have now established seven Mercy Centres and nine satellite centres to provide more than 2,800 children with a package of support.
These Mercy Centres not only provide the displaced and local community with free, easily accessible healthcare but also give children psychosocial support, basic education and a safe place to play.
The crisis in Pakistan is far from over.
People are struggling to survive as their food and money is running and those who have taken them in have nothing more to give. Some are starting to return home but only to find that they have lost everything, including their crops and animals.
Please help us continue our work in North West Pakistan by donating here.