A UK-based nongovernmental organisation (NGO), the UK Islamic Mission, donated eight ambulances for Sindh, five of them for Karachi and three for the interior, to the Jamaat-e-Islami’s welfare group, the al Khidmat Foundation.
The NGO also donated five ambulances for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, eight for Punjab, three for Balochistan and four for Kashmir.
Each ambulance is worth Rs600,000 and is a converted vehicle equipped with all basic emergency services, including oxygen cylinders, blood pressure apparatus and other first aid facilities, said Zahid Parvez, the secretary general of the NGO.
For a huge city like Karachi, there is always a shortage of ambulances, said Anwar Kazmi of the Edhi Foundation. Talking to The Express Tribune, Kazmi said that the Edhi Foundation has around 1,800 ambulances across the country, of which 280 are in Karachi alone. The NGO also has a separate quota of emergency vehicles for tragedies and disasters. “We have kept 40 ambulances separately for such crises,” he said. However, these days when terrorist attacks and target killings are so rife in the city, the need for swift emergency services and ambulances is being felt all the more, he added.
The donation was also welcomed by the founder of another welfare association in Karachi. Ramzan Chhippa, chairman of the Chhippa Welfare Association, said that it is a worthwhile donation to a rightful cause. He also reiterated that the city suffers a shortage of ambulances. According to him, the busiest time for emergency services is during the day, from morning till afternoon. “This is the time when the shortage is felt the most also,” he told The Express Tribune. The Chhippa association has 107 ambulances in Karachi but Ramzan feels that they still need another 143 to cover all the incidents that take place in a day in the metropolis.
The transaction for the donation was signed at a hotel on Tuesday by the chairman of the al Khidmat Foundation, Naimatullah Khan, and the secretary general of the Islamic mission.
Robert Gibson, the British Deputy High Commissioner, was also present at the event. He promised that more aid will be flowing into the country in the coming years. “The UK government will give 638 million pounds for social welfare activities in Pakistan,” he said. He added that two-thirds of this sum will be recommended for the health and education sectors, which are priority areas for the poverty-stricken country. Naimatullah Khan said that the ambulances have already been divided among the four provinces of the country so that there is no delay in the use of these vehicles.
Introducing his organisation, Parvez said that the UK Islamic Mission was established in 1962. It is a national organisation with over 40 branches and Islamic centres working across the UK. “The NGO has been funding several social welfare organisations in Pakistan, such as the Ghazali Foundation, al Shifa, and the Reid in Kashmir, for several years now. They have also constructed orphanages, schools and helped in providing relief and rehabilitation to the internally displaced persons and earthquake victims. Besides Pakistan, the organisation is also working in Kenya, Iraq, Kashmir and other countries.
Shaukat Ali, the relief coordinator of the mission, said that they feel that in emergencies and calamities, many lives are lost simply because there is a dearth of immediate relief resources. He said that the mission has been working in Pakistan with many NGOs and al Khidmat was selected because of its large social network across the country.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 23rd, 2010.
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