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My school in Badin

My school in Badin

Every day, Shaukat and his 72 classmates wade through filthy stagnant rainwater, laughing through their struggle.

Mahawish Rezvi November 29, 2011

Four months after torrential rains hit rural Sindh, the people of Badin are still trying to rebuild their lives. Shaukat is a fourth grader at Kehar Khan Lund primary school in Badin. This video shows his journey to school every morning - a school surrounded by stagnant rain water.

Every day, Shaukat and his seventy-two classmates wade through filthy stagnant rainwater, smiling, even laughing at their struggle. However, their teacher says with no help, little can be done to keep the school functional. Even though Shaukat is fond of learning and says that his favourite subject is poetry, he will be attending school after a one month gap. His house is a mere half kilometre away, yet due to the heavy flooding, the school has been inaccessible.

As unlikely as this story sounds, the video shows footage of the Primary school which is the only remaining standing structure as far as the eye can see. Even here, only one room is functional, whereas the other has collapsed. The narrow path leading to the school is made of hay and mud, clearly exhibiting the desperation of the people pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. With vast stretches of water still standing and winter approaching swiftly, the people of Badin are in need of urgent help.

WRITTEN BY:
Mahawish Rezvi

The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necassarily reflect the views and policies of the Express Tribune.

COMMENTS (7)

Sohail Ahmed | 12 years ago | Reply Good work mahawish :-)My school was also in Badin and I thought I will my rant at the authorities in your blog... the fact is Badin is a place that has always been deprived in one way or another. Badin city was nominated as the dirtiest city of Pakistan (that was well before the flooding!). The state of roads has always been no different to how roads are in Hyderabad (especially near the railway station) and back then hyderabad use to be a city we Badiners looked up to! And I can only imagine what its like now. We often read that Allah helps those who help themselves, and we stand witness to this that this is so very true in the case of authorities in charge of Badin for at least the last 2 decades they are the real culprits of trashing my home town for last 25 years the flooding is a very recent phenomenon so lets not blame mother nature for every thing! The authorities in badin never pulled their socks even once to resolve the pitiful state of the drain system, road network and the general cleansing of streets and now after the flooding the roads in the district have simply been destroyed; little is what we can expect from the hijraas of municipal committee they can only dance and clap their hands whilst the poor Badiners take blows from results of poor drain engineering and nature.The only good thing to my knowledge that happened to Badin was the presence of Pakistan Air force and later on the Army bases! this is really what brought good education facilities that enabled ready access to english medium schools like PAF model school and Army public schools. Through these school the literary level increased new heights and those who could afford the private fees managed to find placements in good standard colleges and universities.The Manroo (People) of Badin are very upright people who love their land and take pride in being sindhi. The culture is rich and remains rich unfortunely only in the villages, however the cities have corrupted many, every sole now seems bent on having a political associations to assert soical pressure on opponents at any cost. People have some what forgoton to fight for their own right all fights are now seemed saved only for the secterian wars or for the leaders of a specific family in a specific goath.I hope the people will change their own state first and hopefully with that ghulshan of sindh will blosssom.

Talib | 12 years ago | Reply This country would destroy without proper education. This is my appeal to all Pakistanis to educate their chidren, even if it's hard to manage.

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