Save Our Souls: a place to call their own
The SOS Children’s village is home to 232 orphans and abandoned children.
RAWALPINDI:
All minors have an instinct in common. They cry when taken away from their mothers. The moment they get back to that “familiar lap,” they stop crying. But then, what stops them after nature takes their mothers away forever?
Mobeen* was only a few months old when his mother died in an accident. His poor father, unable to bear the burden of Mobeen and his four siblings, abandoned them.
A year or so after their mother’s death, fate took them to a ‘village’ where the first thing they were given was a ‘mother’.
Months on, Mobeen appears very much content at his village home, if not happy. He has quickly become the darling of his foster mother.
This is what is amazing about the Save our Souls-SOS-Children’s village, Rawalpindi. None of the 232 orphan and abandoned children currently living at the village were told their past lives or the circumstances under which they were brought here.
A year and a half ago, no one could have imagined that Mobeen, destined to live on people’s sympathies and leftovers, would get a chance to a content life ever.
In this village of mothers and children, Mobeen met Zakia* and Shumaila*, the 5-year-old twin sisters. They had lost all of their family in the October 2005 earthquake, except for a father paralysed for life. The last time he could see them was two years ago.
The two Kashmiri girls were only eight months old when they were first brought to the village in November 2005, fighting pneumonia.
They now study in kindergarten and Zakia has learnt to sing:
Twinkle Twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Their survival was nothing less than a miracle. They had caught the eye of the rescuers from under the rubble of their destroyed house in Muzaffarabad, Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Zakia might never get to know the truth about a golden tuft of hair above her forehead, which was formed due to the de-oxygenation she had suffered under the rubble.
Naeem* would never know her mother was beheaded in Saudi Arabia when he was less than two years of age. Now he is 13-year-old and lives in the youth hostel of the village along with other 50 grown up boys, who leave the village home at attaining the age of 10.
“We cannot give them the affection of a real mother but we try our best,” said Mrs Naseem Muzaffar, the chairperson of the SOS village. Foster mothers for each of the 20 houses of the village were carefully selected.
“They are often widows or divorced women because they easily gel together with the children, take good care of them and most of them never leave the village home,” said the chairperson. She said the Rawalpindi branch of the village, with the aim to provide care and shelter to the orphaned and abandoned children, was established in 1989.
“Since then, 114 children have left SOS care after completing their education and are working in different organisations,” said Muzaffar. “Till the boys find their first job and girls are married, the SOS caters for their every need in a home-like environment,” she added.
Many of the boys and girls from the SOS village have gone on to become soldiers, accountants, engineers, public servants, medical practitioners, teachers and technicians.
If not reunited with their respective families, Mobeen, Zakia and Shumaila, like other children, will leave the village only on finding jobs or getting married. But they will never leave the SOS life.
For girls the SOS remains Mehka (parents’ home) and for boys their ‘village’. So far 26 girls from the village have been married and are living happily. Samiya* will be the 27th one. She is going to get married to Asif*, who was brought to the village at the age of five after both his parents were killed in an accident.
“It is a love-cum-arranged marriage. The girl is a graduate and the boy is working in a company after completing his MBA and CA-Inter. He owns a house,” said Muzaffar, the chairperson.
At the SOS village, children get everything. A father’s affection is perhaps the only thing they miss.
* Names changed to hide the identity of the children on request.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 10th, 2010.
All minors have an instinct in common. They cry when taken away from their mothers. The moment they get back to that “familiar lap,” they stop crying. But then, what stops them after nature takes their mothers away forever?
Mobeen* was only a few months old when his mother died in an accident. His poor father, unable to bear the burden of Mobeen and his four siblings, abandoned them.
A year or so after their mother’s death, fate took them to a ‘village’ where the first thing they were given was a ‘mother’.
Months on, Mobeen appears very much content at his village home, if not happy. He has quickly become the darling of his foster mother.
This is what is amazing about the Save our Souls-SOS-Children’s village, Rawalpindi. None of the 232 orphan and abandoned children currently living at the village were told their past lives or the circumstances under which they were brought here.
A year and a half ago, no one could have imagined that Mobeen, destined to live on people’s sympathies and leftovers, would get a chance to a content life ever.
In this village of mothers and children, Mobeen met Zakia* and Shumaila*, the 5-year-old twin sisters. They had lost all of their family in the October 2005 earthquake, except for a father paralysed for life. The last time he could see them was two years ago.
The two Kashmiri girls were only eight months old when they were first brought to the village in November 2005, fighting pneumonia.
They now study in kindergarten and Zakia has learnt to sing:
Twinkle Twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Their survival was nothing less than a miracle. They had caught the eye of the rescuers from under the rubble of their destroyed house in Muzaffarabad, Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Zakia might never get to know the truth about a golden tuft of hair above her forehead, which was formed due to the de-oxygenation she had suffered under the rubble.
Naeem* would never know her mother was beheaded in Saudi Arabia when he was less than two years of age. Now he is 13-year-old and lives in the youth hostel of the village along with other 50 grown up boys, who leave the village home at attaining the age of 10.
“We cannot give them the affection of a real mother but we try our best,” said Mrs Naseem Muzaffar, the chairperson of the SOS village. Foster mothers for each of the 20 houses of the village were carefully selected.
“They are often widows or divorced women because they easily gel together with the children, take good care of them and most of them never leave the village home,” said the chairperson. She said the Rawalpindi branch of the village, with the aim to provide care and shelter to the orphaned and abandoned children, was established in 1989.
“Since then, 114 children have left SOS care after completing their education and are working in different organisations,” said Muzaffar. “Till the boys find their first job and girls are married, the SOS caters for their every need in a home-like environment,” she added.
Many of the boys and girls from the SOS village have gone on to become soldiers, accountants, engineers, public servants, medical practitioners, teachers and technicians.
If not reunited with their respective families, Mobeen, Zakia and Shumaila, like other children, will leave the village only on finding jobs or getting married. But they will never leave the SOS life.
For girls the SOS remains Mehka (parents’ home) and for boys their ‘village’. So far 26 girls from the village have been married and are living happily. Samiya* will be the 27th one. She is going to get married to Asif*, who was brought to the village at the age of five after both his parents were killed in an accident.
“It is a love-cum-arranged marriage. The girl is a graduate and the boy is working in a company after completing his MBA and CA-Inter. He owns a house,” said Muzaffar, the chairperson.
At the SOS village, children get everything. A father’s affection is perhaps the only thing they miss.
* Names changed to hide the identity of the children on request.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 10th, 2010.