Gainfully employed: Adding an element of beauty to others’ lives

Women injured in the 2005 earthquake earn some money and a life of dignity.

ISLAMABAD:

Selecting strips made from recycled paper, Nausheen Islam, 26, rigorously twists her fingers in a disk-like shape gluing the tips. Tossing her fifth bead in a pile of hundreds, Islam has to meet her target for a set of beads for delivery to the Paper Miracles headquarters.

She cracked a joke while carefully choosing another batch of strips from a box. Her humour brightened the room with smiles from strangers who she now calls family. As they sat in a circle assisting one another, this was not the life Islam had foreseen for herself nine years ago.

On October 8 2005, Islam was enrolled as a first-year student in a college in Muzaffarabad. That morning while engrossed in a history test, as her pen slid across the page, she looked up to witness large cracks snake through walls meeting with those appearing in the ceiling. “I was under the rubble and I thought this was the end.”

As the rescue teams dug her out, she was taken to a nearby hospital along with other victims of the earthquake. “I was on my back for days,” she said. “The minute my back was inclined in an upward position, I looked down to discover myself seated on a wheelchair. I was shattered.”

Injury to her spinal cord rendered her paraplegic, paralysing her waist down. She spent months in National Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine and years at home in depression before she decided to settle in Ehsaas Foundation, a shelter nestled in Golra village, Islamabad.

“I love my family for all that they have done for me. But whenever I’m home it reminds me of the time I was not dependent on anyone” said Islam. “Here I live with other girls who can feel my pain that no one else can relate to. This is home now.”

Islam now lives in the shelter home with 14 other girls who suffered from trauma in the catastrophic 2005 earthquake. Wheelchair-bound women find it difficult to move around in mountainous regions. When most of them were abandoned by their families, they had no way of fending for themselves until employed by Paper Miracles where they craft delicate accessories. Sales made through exhibitions are their only source of income and each woman earns Rs1,600 to 1,800 per month.

“Bead-making makes us all spend our time well and with our income we shop for whatever it is that we want,” she said.

Zarina Bibi, a mother of two recovered from her injury to discover that she had lost her parents to the disaster. As her husband mistreated her, she decided to shift to the shelter and never return.

“I have nothing to look forward to at home. The day I become wheelchair-bound, I could not take care of my responsibilities the way I used to. My husband remarried, taking custody of my elder daughter.”  I live a better life now. A life of security and dignity,” she said.

Shazia Bibi became victim of domestic violence after she was rendered paraplegic. “There were days my husband would drag me off my wheelchair and onto the floor.” I would lie on the floor for hours crying for help. The village is a reminder of a life I don’t intend to live, she said.

The narrow walls of Zoonish Muneeb’s house in Muzaffarabad do not allow her to return home even if she wanted to. Muneeb parks her wheelchair outside her home each time she travels back to meet her family. “I put my arms around my sisters who carry me around. I feel like a burden.”

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Paper Miracles Chief Executive Officer Elli Takagaki said the project turned into an obsession. Ten years ago on a visit Uganda, while crossing a village, Takagaki saw hundreds of paralysed artisans rolling up paper, socialising and singing in unison. Replicating the model in Pakistan, the project works with its value chain development partners, including artisans to hone technical skills and confidence to integrate them into the Paper Miracles value chain.

“It was not sympathy towards these women that triggered my interest in wanting to support them, but their strength and willingness to do something was beyond inspirational” said Takagaki.  “Paper Miracles is just the beginning of a beautiful journey and success stories.”

The initiative encourages peer-to-peer learning along with the flexibility to generate income from the comfort of their homes. As paper-beads artisans, they engage in income-generating activity which promotes economic independence.

Paper Miracles has been participating in bazaars and fairs across Pakistan. With its latest effort to make an international mark, it is taking its products to Japan for a fashion show this month.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2014.