Non-profit battles the stone age in village
Children as young as 8 working with machinery.
KARACHI:
“The daily plight of residents within rural Sindh is well recognised by both governmental and non-government organisations across Pakistan,” said the founder of Shadab Rural Development Organisation (SRDO), Mukhtiar Satho.
He stated this at a presentation on Wednesday on the motivation for their work in the district of Sanghar. He explained that the combination of a lack of clean drinking water, insufficient health and educational facilities, weak infrastructure and a traditional mindset, all contribute towards letting almost two million people live in the stone age.
For the past ten years, the SRDO has worked in Sanghar district and has been focusing primarily on improving the city of Shadadpur, which is 70 km from Hyderabad.
SRDO’s current focal point, aside from the management of a school in Shahdadpur, is providing financial aid to farmers. From 2005 to 2011, a total of over Rs90 million has been provided in loans ranging between Rs10,000 to Rs30,000 each. Debtors are given a period of either six months or a year, based on the kind of crops they plan to cultivate. Satho explained that as some projects are more fruitful than others, if it is assumed that a higher revenue will be generated once the finances are put to use, then they allocate a shorter time frame to the debtors.
Microfinance along with enterprise, agriculture and livestock loans are given on the basis of social collateral. Women, against tradition, are encouraged to take small loans and they can decide how to use their finances according to their individual judgm ent. Satho explained that “the most important battle is against the traditional mentality.” He went on to say that women are not treated as equals in the villages and a forward-moving society was impossible to create unless women were involved too.
The non-profit has also been trying to tackle child labour. Even six-year-old children are encouraged to work by their parents in unsafe environments. “My child was only experimenting with machinery in the carpet factory while bringing food to me on the way back home,” claimed Kato, who has eight children. But investigations revealed that three of her children, all younger than 12, had been working almost 10 hours a day under her watch.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 29th, 2011.
“The daily plight of residents within rural Sindh is well recognised by both governmental and non-government organisations across Pakistan,” said the founder of Shadab Rural Development Organisation (SRDO), Mukhtiar Satho.
He stated this at a presentation on Wednesday on the motivation for their work in the district of Sanghar. He explained that the combination of a lack of clean drinking water, insufficient health and educational facilities, weak infrastructure and a traditional mindset, all contribute towards letting almost two million people live in the stone age.
For the past ten years, the SRDO has worked in Sanghar district and has been focusing primarily on improving the city of Shadadpur, which is 70 km from Hyderabad.
SRDO’s current focal point, aside from the management of a school in Shahdadpur, is providing financial aid to farmers. From 2005 to 2011, a total of over Rs90 million has been provided in loans ranging between Rs10,000 to Rs30,000 each. Debtors are given a period of either six months or a year, based on the kind of crops they plan to cultivate. Satho explained that as some projects are more fruitful than others, if it is assumed that a higher revenue will be generated once the finances are put to use, then they allocate a shorter time frame to the debtors.
Microfinance along with enterprise, agriculture and livestock loans are given on the basis of social collateral. Women, against tradition, are encouraged to take small loans and they can decide how to use their finances according to their individual judgm ent. Satho explained that “the most important battle is against the traditional mentality.” He went on to say that women are not treated as equals in the villages and a forward-moving society was impossible to create unless women were involved too.
The non-profit has also been trying to tackle child labour. Even six-year-old children are encouraged to work by their parents in unsafe environments. “My child was only experimenting with machinery in the carpet factory while bringing food to me on the way back home,” claimed Kato, who has eight children. But investigations revealed that three of her children, all younger than 12, had been working almost 10 hours a day under her watch.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 29th, 2011.