After the tragedy: Rekindling hope among schoolchildren

Over 300 pupils attend school at earthquake-resistant building .

BAGH:

Six kilometres north of Bagh city, a winding gravel road rises up along a mountain side near Paddar Nullah. Twisting and turning treacherously, the road reaches a height of around 6,000 feet, narrows down to a dirt path, and ends in front of an open steel gate. Beyond the gate, the slanted, red-brick roof of an elegant two-storey building can be seen.

This is the new home for the government boys high school of Dhal Qazian. Its predecessor, an old, shed-like structure built in the early ‘70s, was destroyed when the earth under it shook on the dreadful morning of October 8, 2005.

Now, seven years later, more than 300 students from Dhal Qazian and two nearby villages study at this state-of-the-art, earthquake-resistant building, which was reconstructed by construction firm CDM Smith under the USAID’s Pakistan Earthquake Reconstruction and Recovery Programme (PERRP).

The school is equipped with spacious classrooms, furniture, a library, an examination hall and a playground. The school’s two science laboratories are being used by students from 12 other public schools of nearby villages and towns.

“We couldn’t have expected such a grand school building being built here for centuries to come,” Raja Roshan Johar, the district education officer of Bagh, said at an earthquake anniversary ceremony held at the school.

The school’s in-charge teacher, Muhammad Shabbir, said the reconstructed building has made the Dhal Qazian community look at the brighter side of life.

“It’s difficult to forget the images of the earthquake, but the reconstruction of the school has taught us lessons of self help and to share each other’s grief to get over the tragedy,” he said.

CDM is also about to complete reconstruction of a government girls high school behind the building for boys.

Principal of the girls school, Afifa Batool said she and her teaching staff had to console students who had lost their loved-ones in the disaster and help them deal with the tragedy. The new school building, she says, will help them achieve that.

“While the children lost something or someone in the earthquake, they have also found something with this reconstructed school. I hope this can be a new beginning for them.”

The Dhal Qazian schools are two of 27 public schools reconstructed by USAID and CDM in Bagh district. Of the 27 schools, 15 have been completed while the rest are expected to be completed by June 2013, vice president of CDM and chief of PERRP Tarek Selim said.

PERRP was launched in 2006 to plan, design and build earthquake resistant buildings in Bagh district of Azad Jammu & Kashmir and Mansehra district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to replace schools and health facilities destroyed during the earthquake.

Once completed, the programme will have built 77 buildings in the two districts, including 15 basic health units and one hospital. The reconstructed buildings will help provide education to around 17,000 children and health services to around 300,000 residents, Selim said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 8^th, 2012.