The road to recovery: Hope and honour for victims of militancy

Conflict Victims Support Programme aims to identify and provide assistance across K-P, FATA.

PESHAWAR:

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) plans to spend $25 million to provide grants to victims of conflict in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).

The USAID-funded programme titled ‘Conflict Victims Support Programme’ is a three-year project implemented by International Relief and Development (IRD) to assist victims of militancy in restoring their lives. The programme also works with provincial governments to strengthen existing victim compensation intervention.



Conflict Victims Support Programme Outreach Team Leader Naveed Yousafzai said the programme is providing equitable and transparent support to civilians in K-P and Fata. “Tailored assistance in the form of medical and livelihood services and supplies is delivered to beneficiaries through direct delivery and through a referral network of existing local providers,” added Yousafzai.

Medical aid

Yousafzai said the programme was launched in December 2012 and to date 82 medics have received mass casualty management training while 350 community members received first-aid training.

“Furthermore, the emergency wards of four major government-run hospitals in K-P have received life-saving equipment which enables them to maximise their response capacity,” he added.

Life-saving equipment worth $1.3 million was provided to Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital, Hayatabad Medical Complex and Saidu Teaching Hospital. This includes ventilation machines, electric beds, oximetres and X-ray machines.

Vocational training

According to Yousafzai, 1,550 beneficiaries have been enrolled in vocational training programmes for various jobs including driving; plumbing; software and hardware repair; maintenance of motor vehicles, air conditioners and refrigerators; and tailoring.

“Upon the completion of their course, participants also receive toolkits relevant to the training they acquired to help them pursue self-employment,” he said. Furthermore, 379 victims who were not able to attend training are awarded small business grants.

Broadcast media

The programme’s radio campaign, launched in April 2013, has produced and broadcasted 1,240 public service announcements, 72 drama shows, 99 pre-recorded shows and 36 live shows to date.

Yousafzai said the shows focus on informing the public about the assistance available to them and providing hope for restoring lives and livelihood destroyed in the conflict. The programme does so by highlighting real-life success stories of victims who received assistance and were able to get back on their feet.

The Civilian Victims Fund

The Conflict Victims Support Programme is in the process of establishing a long-term Civilian Victims Fund to continue assistance to civilian victims of K-P and Fata beyond the life of the programme. The programme has already granted 708 education scholarships to orphans/children of conflict-affected families under this component.

According to Yousafzai, the programme plans to provide 1,000 scholarships to conflict-affected students, especially orphans, and will continue to mobilise resources for the fund to sustain it.

“I can now finally have peace of mind. I want my children to have a better life than mine and that can only happen through education,” Nizakat Bibi, an education scholarship recipient, told The Express Tribune. She lost her husband and a son in a suicide blast in December 2007 in Sherpao, Charsadda.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 11^th,2013.