I'm due to fly back on Sunday morning, but I was being taken to Islamabad on Saturday. It's Friday evening and I've just been told that the lift that provides access out of the village I'm staying in is being repaired tomorrow and so I'm not sure what to do there. I'm sure Nisara has a back-up plan that will save the day.
I'm beginning to get the feeling that Pakistan doesn't want me to leave... Seeing as I could be the Head of the Psychology department at the main university here and set up a children's centre, I'm thinking that it's not such a bad thing that I do stay... :-o
Let's see what happens over the next day or two ;-)
Muzaffarabad, 16/9/08 - 20/10/08
- Shabnam
- I am undertaking a needs assessment in the red zone earthquake disaster area of Kashmir, called Muzaffarabad district. The charity I work for, KYDS Trust, has previously provided fresh and easily accessible water to a village completed destroyed by the earthquake. My remit is to evaluate and replicate this good work in similarly remote villages. These remote areas have been somewhat neglected by the aid work that this disaster attracted and are certainly not helped by their government. Previous KYDS assessments identified that these places are in dire need of basic human needs: water, permanent homes, schools, health centres, orphanages, and, in addition, unemployment rates are sky-high. So, people are caught in a poverty trap: they have no education or means of getting skills to then earn a living which means they continue to live in this deprived way, affecting their social and health needs, and continuing in the next generation. By providing basic health, social and education support, there is a much higher chance of the lot of these people - who have already suffered so much loss - improving.
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