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Quality and Accountability in humanitarian work are essential to ensure that aid effectively supports and empowers the communities it is intended to help. Community World Service Asia (CWSA) provides technical support and guidance to local humanitarian agencies in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and across the Asia-Pacific region to enhance quality and accountability by applying the Sphere Minimum Standards.

In partnership with Concern Worldwide, CWSA conducted a three-day workshop from 21 to 23 February 2024, in Umerkot, Sindh, titled “Integrating Sphere Technical Standards in Project Cycle Management”. Eighteen participants enrolled in the workshop, including 12 men and six women. The training focused on enhancing participants’ understanding and skills in applying the Sphere Minimum Standards throughout different Project Cycle Management (PCM) stages. It aimed to explain the philosophy and approach of Sphere and guide participants in navigating the Sphere handbook to help them integrate the standards into the humanitarian project cycle more effectively.

Local and national humanitarian practitioners were equipped with the technical, management, and programmatic skills required to enhance the quality of their internal operations and improve their effectiveness in disaster preparedness and response through the three days. Participants gained a thorough understanding of Sphere’s core principles and learned how to apply the standards across key themes such as water and sanitation, health, shelter, and nutrition. They also worked towards developing skills in needs assessment, response planning, and program implementation following Sphere guidelines.

“As humanitarian workers and development practitioners, we are all familiar with the various stages of project management. However, this training was especially valuable for understanding the practical application of Sphere standards during the project design and implementation stages,” said Harris Najeeb[1], Manager of Networking and Partnerships at ARTS Foundation, who participated in the training.

ARTS Foundation is a non-profit, indigenous civil society organisation based in Sindh. It focuses on capacity development, action research, policy advocacy, and humanitarian response. The foundation’s current projects are centered on flood recovery and response, particularly on Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH).

“The Sphere technical standards of WASH & Hygiene, have been particularly informative for me. After the training, I conducted a session on WASH technical standards, for my team of community mobilisers & hygiene promoters. We are now referring to the Water Supply Standard 2.1 (Access and Water Quantity), Excreta Management Standard 3.2 (Access to and use of toilets) and Hygiene Promotion Standard 1.2 (Identification, access to and use of hygiene items). Our teams are using these indicators while designing toilets for communities.”

Harris has also helped his team update the organisation’s Safe Programming Matrix document, incorporating protection principles, gender sensitivity, operational context, and environmental impact, all in line with Sphere guidelines.

Although ARTS Foundation has not yet initiated the Sphere or Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS) accreditation process, they are keen to build their staff’s capacity on Sphere standards and integrate the Sphere approach into their grassroots community work.

Furthermore, participants acquired an understanding of accountability mechanisms, such as feedback and complaint systems, to promote transparency and community involvement. They also learned strategies to enhance coordination and collaboration with other humanitarian actors, thereby improving the overall effectiveness of emergency response efforts.

CWSA remains committed to supporting local NGOs and civil society in strengthening their knowledge and capacity on Sphere, to enhance the overall effectiveness of humanitarian and development responses.

[1] Interviewee: Engineer Haris Najeeb, Advocacy, Research, Training and Services (ARTS) Foundation, Sindh, artsf.haris@gmail,com, (03343317352)

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Life has taken a harsh turn for Lachhman, a 26-year-old father of two in a small village in Union Council Faqeer Abdullah of District Umerkot, Sindh. His family of five—two young daughters aged eight and seven, his wife, and his mother—depend entirely on agriculture as their primary source of income. On their five acres of rain-fed land, they once grew crops such as cluster beans, moth beans, and millet, which thrived in good rainfall seasons. This brought a yearly income of around PKR 70,000 to 80,000 (approximately 288 USD).

However, for the past five years, irregular and increasingly unreliable rainfall has made this a once-stable source of income precarious. The crop yield from their land has fallen by 50%, and rising inflation has made survival incredibly difficult for the family. Their total household expenditure, almost PKR 10,000 to 12,000 (approximately 44 USD), has become nearly impossible to meet for the couple. As a result,  the children cannot attend school—not just due to financial constraints but also because there is no school available in their village.

Recognising the challenges faced by agricultural communities like Lachhman’s, Community World Service Asia (CWSA) initiated a humanitarian project titled “Strengthening the Livelihoods and Resilience of Vulnerable Agricultural Communities in Rural Sindh, Pakistan”, supported by Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe (DKH). This initiative is specifically designed to support families whose livelihoods depend heavily on agriculture and have been severely impacted by unpredictable weather patterns and climate change impact, in terms of a significant drop in their income. The project aims to enable these families to adapt and survive in these challenging and evolving conditions.

Lachhman’s family was selected to receive assistance under this project, as their livelihood was 75% reliant on agriculture, and their income had drastically decreased due to poor crop yields. Lachhman received Multipurpose Cash Assistance (MPCA), distributed through mobile cash transfers (Telenor mobile wallet accounts). On October 8, 2024, he received his first installment of PKR 17,000 (approximately 62 USD). A total of five installments of the same amount will be provided, totaling PKR 85,000 (approximately 306 USD), during the project.

This first installment was a lifeline for Lachhman and his family. With the money, he bought new clothes for his children and met other essential needs, such as groceries. The timing of this assistance was important, as his crops were not yet ready for harvesting[1], and the family had no other source of income. Without this support, Lachhman might have had to borrow money, causing further financial difficulties.

For the future, Lachhman is already planning to invest the next installment in a small tuck shop. He requires PKR 15,000 to 20,000 (approx. USD 54 to 72) to fulfill this dream. He hopes this new business will provide his family with a steady daily income of PKR 200 to 300 (approx. USD 1 to 2), while also benefiting other villages, as there is currently only one shop in the area. In the meantime, Lachhman has also started cultivating his land again, planting cluster beans on two acres, moth beans on one acre, and millet on the remaining two acres. He managed to buy the seeds even before he received the financial assistance.

“I am very thankful to the whole team at CWSA for this immense support. If I had to borrow from someone, it would have caused a lot of difficulties going forward,” Lachhman said gratefully.

The selection of participating families in the project began in late August 2024, and CWSA had started providing much-needed financial assistance to those most in need by October. Through these efforts, families can survive the economic hardships brought on by climate change and maintain their livelihoods in the face of unpredictable weather conditions.

This initiative not only addresses immediate financial needs but also helps these vulnerable communities build resilience for the future. It helps reduce their suffering and survive challenging times with dignity. With support like this, families like Lachhman’s have hope for a more stable and prosperous future, despite the continuing challenges they face due to climate change and subsequent economic hardships.

[1] August is typically the harvest time for cluster beans and millet, but these had been severely affected

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In village Rohiraro, Umerkot, Mauta is a remarkable and outspoken woman. Originally from a village near Chhachro, she was married into Rohiraro, where she and her husband raised six sons. Though she did not receive formal education herself, Mauta was determined to ensure her sons received an education. She sent them through government primary, middle schools and high school, all the way to the twelfth grade. She laughingly admits she thought this was the highest level of education because she had no idea about university degrees. When her eldest completed what she believed was the “ultimate” level of schooling and returned to the village, Mauta set him to work looking after their livestock. With nearly 30 goats, Mauta considered herself well-off and believed her educated son was gainfully employed helping with the animals.

In 2020 when Community World Service Asia (CWSA) began its interventions1 in Rohiraro, Mauta became a very active member of the Village Management Committee set up to ensure community ownership and engagement in the project. She gained a new perspective through her involvement, including the benefits of family planning, which she enthusiastically promoted within the community through door-to-door campaigns, even accompanying women to nearby government facilities to help them plan childbirth.

“It was for the first time I learned that twelve grades of education is no education at all. That there are universities which provide even higher learning,” she says. Determined to send her eldest son to university, she faced opposition from her husband. He is an unskilled labourer with no formal education. He believed that they could not afford the expense of sending their sons to expensive educational institutions. Mauta disagreed, insisting that their livestock could be used to fund her sons’ education. “What is the point of having a large livestock if it could not send our sons to college?” she remarked. She sold some goats to raise PKR 40,000 (approx. USD 144) for her son’s admission to Sindh University in Hyderabad. A year later, she sold more animals to cover his annual fees.

She also enrolled her second son in Sindh University and her third in Allama Iqbal Open University in Umerkot. The younger two are in the intermediate programme post-matriculation and also aspire to attend university. Mauta may not understand what her sons are studying, but she takes pride in the fact that they can speak English and have even taught her to write her name in Sindhi.

“My youngest son is in grade nine and also keen to go to university. He wants me to pay for a private tutor to help him in his studies so that he can make the grade for university,” she says. She shared that traditionally boys in Rohiraro dropped out after matriculation, but Mauta’s decision to send her sons to university has inspired other families to prioritise their sons’ education. According to her, at least 20 other boys from the village are now attending colleges in Umerkot.

“Since my boys started university, everyone began to look at me with awe and reverence,” says Mauta. Although she has no daughter, she insists she would not have held a girl back from education even if it meant selling her livestock. This is very brave of her given she is from a remote village in the Umerkot desert.

To keep her sons in university, Mauta has taken up sewing, using her skills to meet the day-to-day household expenses. In addition to minding her livestock, she sews women’s dresses on order.

What motivated her to take such a bold step after the first few VMC meetings? Mauta credits the visiting social mobilisers whose eloquence impressed her. She wanted her sons to be like them.

When asked about her proudest moment since her sons began higher education, Mauta does not hesitate. She says it was not about her sons but her own growth. At the recent International Education Day celebrations, organised by CWSA and Act for Peace (AFP), in her village, Mauta delivered a speech advocating for education in front of a crowd. The pride she felt came not from the attentive audience but from the applause that followed.

This was the first time she had ever given a speech, and Mauta believes that while her sons’ education has progressed, so has her personal development.

  1. Under the Health-Education Project supported by Act for Peace ↩︎

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Not far from Umerkot town, Janhero is a large village with 10,000 people. At the time of partition, it likely had around one-fifth of that number. Nevertheless, it caught the attention of a dedicated officer from the Education Department, leading to the establishment of the first primary school here in 1948. Among its alumni are several doctors, custom officers, a senator and an officer in the National Accountability Bureau, which Ahmed Ali, the headmaster, recounts with visible pride. In addition to this school, the village now has three other girls’ schools and seven boys’ schools. However, since its inception, the Government Boys Primary School has been a co-educational institution currently having a total of 250 pupils, of which 80 are girls.

Ahmed Ali, himself an alumnus, emphasises that there never was a tradition of corporal punishment at the school. However, the Early Childhood Care and Education, Positive Learning Environment and Inclusive Environment trainings he undertook with Community World Service Asia (CWSA) in 2023, had a considerable impact on his teaching methods. Even before applying what he learned, he passed on his training to his colleagues and today all four government teachers at the school are properly trained.

“Earlier, the system was to read a lesson from the textbook and instruct the children to learn it at home. Rote was the method, there was no emphasis on understanding. Also, the students were never involved in the learning process. But now we invite the children to ask questions and play roles,” says Ahmed. He adds that though there are Hindu and Muslim students, there is no religious prejudice in his school.

The partnership between Community World Service Asia and Act for Peace (AFP) made the training possible and provided an additional teacher. Young Abdul Ghaffar is an artist in his spare time and he was lucky the village had many schools which occasionally called upon him to paint murals on classroom walls. However, this work was sporadic with gaps in between. Since the reopening of the school after the summer break in 2023, he has secured a regular teaching position with a stable salary, thanks to the education team’s intervention. This has made life easier for him and his dedication has benefited the school and its students.

“More than the pay, it is the sense of achievement I have interacting with my nursery class,” says Ghaffar. “From being unlettered, I have seen children progressing in these past seven months into forming letters and figures and when I draw something on the board, they copy it with so much joy.” He adds that when he informed the children he would leave when the project ended, they all clamoured for him to stay. That, surely, is the best feedback any teacher could ask for.

Ahmed Ali notes that the school has received two rounds of hygiene kits for the students, with the second distribution taking place in January. Since the formation of the hygiene society in school and the students being tasked with ensuring personal cleanliness, there is a clear difference compared to before CWSA’s intervention. The students can now demonstrate the proper way to wash their hands. Ahmed points out that since the first distribution of the kits, the old practice of using dust or clay to cleanse the hands has nearly disappeared. He has observed that his students now encourage their families to always keep soap in the house.

Twelve-year-old Farhan’s father, Yunis, was a teacher at this same school before retiring to run a small grocery store. The boy wants to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a teacher. But Yunis thinks his son should become a police officer, which Farhan wryly recounts. He wants to teach because there are few teachers in his school. His favourite subjects are Sindhi, Science and Islamiyat. For now, Farhan aims to complete twelve grades, the minimum level of education required to join the police but hopes to eventually persuade his family to support his dream of attending university to train to become a teacher.

Ten-year-old Heer speaks clear, unaccented Urdu. Her father, a journalist and president of the local press club, often plays Urdu news bulletins on the television at home, which has helped her language. She enjoys Science and Maths and wants to become a doctor so that she can run a clinic in the village and provide quality treatment to people who currently have to travel to Umerkot when ill.

Arooj Fatima, whose father is a teacher in a neighbouring village, also wants to become a doctor. But unlike Heer, she is quite clear that she will have a clinic in Hyderabad so she can make some money as well. Though both girls say they are proficient in maths, they do not consider engineering a career.

Ten-year-old Bhawani Shankar is also focused on his future. His father, a master bricklayer, has advised him to become a customs officer. Bhawani understands that this will require hard work and a college degree, but he is determined to pursue it for his parents’ sake. When asked how his Urdu is so clear, he credits it to attending school.

The bell rings for the mid-morning break and headmaster Ahmed Ali shows the students at play outside. Activities like badminton, hula hoops, and skipping ropes fill the schoolyard with colour and joy as children use equipment they have not seen before. The headmaster said that this was part of the education project by CWSA and AFP. Previously, the school had no sports equipment and students were discouraged from making noise during the breaks, he added.

According to Ali, before this initiative, the school only had a couple of footballs and a cricket bat, used exclusively by boys. Although girls shared classrooms with boys, they did not play with them and often stayed inside. The new variety of sports equipment encouraged girls to participate in games.

These youngsters’ ambitions and dreams are a sign of the impact of the education they receive. Many children have previously completed high school without a vision of their future. This small initiative by AFP and CWSA to improve the education system in remote Janhero represents a major leap forward for the village’s children.

Such progress would hardly have been possible without the Village Management Committee (VMC). Elderly Laxman, an active member of the VMC, emphasises his role in enrolling around 50 out-of-school children. When the education project began, he went door to door, often hearing the same response: that children had to participate in farm labour alongside their parents. “I told them it is education that will break the shackles of their poverty, not farm labour they have done through countless generations. An educated child stands every chance of getting a respectable job. But if they force their children into labour, the cycle will continue,” says Laxman. He now maintains a directory of parents’ phone numbers and to follow up if a child misses school.

The VMC also supports 12 children who are either orphans or from poor families as they cannot afford school supplies. Laxman says that several better-off committee members pool resources to provide these children with the necessary materials. Additionally, the VMC financially assists the few village youngsters who have reached university.

“The committee’s biggest success surely is getting out-of-school children enrolled and ensuring that students do not leave the village with their parents on the seasonal harvest migration,” says Laxman. It is now ensured by the committee that one or two members of every migrating family remain behind to ensure that children do not drop out of school.

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“It became quite burdensome to make the weekly trip to Umerkot for my regular check-ups. This necessitated a significant expenditure of both energy and money, as one cannot visit a hospital in Umerkot without having at least three thousand in their pocket. Upon reaching the hospital, I often found myself lacking sufficient funds to purchase all the prescribed medicines, ending up with only buying a few out of the lot,” shared Cheeno, an 80-year-old grandfather living in the small village of Ramsar, located 65 kilometres away from Umerkot city. The little village is connected by a road to the rest of the district.

With age, Cheeno developed several health issues, including Acute Respiratory Infection, making him susceptible to coughs and flu even in hot weather. “It was challenging for me to walk the 10 kilometres distance to reach the road from our village where one could catch a ride to Umerkot city. I recall that the journey to Umerkot for my check-ups would worsen my condition, and by the time I reached the hospital, walking became troublesome,” explained Cheeno. The journey to Umerkot has consistently proven exhausting for residents of Ramsar, but they had not choice if they wanted to prioritise their health and get a check-up done at a health facility. That was the nearest to them.

Cheeno is blessed with fifteen grandchildren; nine boys and six girls. He has twenty-three members in his family, including his wife, three sons, and their families. All three of his sons work as labourers on agrarian fields alongside their wives to ensure three meals for their children and parents. They work on daily wages for land owners.

With all his sons working (though only seasonally), which is a big blessing for families living in rural Umerkot, Cheeno has lived his set of struggles. He reflects on the challenges the family has faced, “My wife cannot walk; she has weak legs. Sometimes, I had to carry her on my back to the road to take her to Umerkot for her medical treatment. We were leading a very difficult life.” With limited access to health facilities, most families, especially elderly and those disabled, faced severe challenges to access even the most basic health care.

In July 2022, Community World Service Asia (CWSA) operationalised a public dispensary and initiated quality health services in Ramsar. The dispensary had been non-functional previously due to lack of resources, such as medical staff, equipment and medicines. In collaboration with Act for Peace (AFP) and with the support of the Australian government, CWSA launched this health project1, operating from a government dispensary and, over the past year, has provided free medicine and diagnosis to over 7,000 patients.

“When I first learned that the dispensary was functional, I felt relieved and happy. Now, we could obtain medicines by walking just a few meters. Since discovering this dispensary, we have stopped taking the long rides to Umerkot. During my initial visit to the dispensary in August 2023, I experienced severe respiratory problems that I have been suffering from due to old age. To my surprise, I was given medicines for free. These medicines really helped me,” shared Cheeno. He continues to visit the dispensary whenever he runs out of medications, and his tendency to catch the flu has significantly diminished. Presently, he only suffers from a cough, attributed primarily to physical weakness and age.

Community World Service Asia has been providing a range of medical services at the Ramsar Dispensary, including OPD services with vital medicines offered free of cost. Awareness raising sessions on family planning and women’s reproductive health, antenatal and postnatal care services, baby delivery services, and general well-being counselling sessions are conducted at the dispensary and with the community members on a regular basis. Cheeno’s family has been availing these health services ever since its launch.

Village Committees have actively participated in this project through health education sessions, international days, capacity-building trainings, and meetings held in their villages and at dispensaries. The community has supported organising these events, disseminated health awareness, and referred patients to clinics. They have also ensured the protection of dispensary staff and medical equipment. As a result of these interventions over the past two years, health awareness has increased, leading to improved women’s health and reduced infant mortality. Prior to CWSA’s involvement, the village of Ramsar had numerous kidney disease cases. Now, due to proper medication and awareness sessions, the situation has significantly improved.

“When I first came here with my son, we realised we had to tell everyone at home about this dispensary since it was such a blessing. I was eager to bring my wife here as she needed treatment for her weakness and recurrent illnesses too. She was prescribed different calcium and vitamins, and gradually, she was able to take a few steps on her own,” shared Cheeno. This marked a significant relief for Cheeno, as his wife, who was almost bedridden due to her weak legs, could now walk. Following Cheeno, all his other family members, especially the women, have become regular visitors at the dispensary. From his daughters-in-law receiving baby delivery services to his grandchildren availing regular medical check-ups, the Ramsar Dispensary has addressed many healthcare needs for Cheeno’s family and many others living in the area.

Under its health program, Community World Service Asia has extended primary healthcare services in three Union Councils (UCs) – Faqeer Abdullah, Sekhro, and Kaplore – in District Umerkot. The health centres have prioritised Maternal, New-born, and Child Health (MNCH) by operating in three government health dispensaries in collaboration with the district health department. “I used to take loans from landlords for my visits to Umerkot, but now we are happy and less burdened. We have a great service nearby, and we are even able to save the money that we used to spend on medicines, all thanks to CWSA and AFP,” smiled Cheeno.

  1. Improving Health and Education Services in Migration Prone Union Councils of District Umerkot ↩︎

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Lal Ji, his wife and three children of village Umeed Ali Chandio just outside Nabisar (Umerkot district) live in a very neat, well-kept, almost picturesque home. He is a landless farmer who works eight acres of a landlord’s holding and shares the proceeds with the owner. But he blindly followed farming procedures unchanged for centuries. He cites the example of how millets, guar and mauth lentils were sowed all together in the same plots despite each having a different ripening time.

“When the first crop was ready and we harvested, we damaged nearly half of the remaining unripe species underfoot and with the sickle. That was the way passed down to us by our elders and it simply did not occur to us that planting each specie in separate plots could double the yield of those ripening later. It had to be the staff and trainers of this organisation (Community World Service Asia (CWSA)) to teach us how to do the right thing under!” says Lal Ji.

Asked why it was like that and why he or other farmers did not think logically to increase their yield, Lal Ji simply shrugs and says that was the way of the elders. “But now we are awakened and I am myself surprised how such a simple thing eluded us,” he adds.

If that ancient practice put Thar farmers at a disadvantage, the periodic disasters added to the deterrent. In 2021, Thar was invaded by a pestilence of locust. That year Lal Ji had invested PKR 40,000 (Approx. USD 143) in the eight acres he was farming. This sum had all been borrowed from the landlord and when the locusts wiped out every last bit of green from his fields. He went under debt and had to live by selling off some of his livestock. The year that followed was hardly any better. If there was no locust, the summer rains failed and once again Lal Ji kept body and soul together by disposing off some more of his livestock.

The beginning of 2022 brought in succour. The multi-purpose cash grant, agricultural and vegetable seeds together with training under CWSA & DKH’s food security and livelihood support, smoothed the bumpy road Lal Ji was treading. His excitement about learning to plant millets, guar and mauth in different plots is still viable two years after learning this evident truth. The cash grant helped him pay off his debt and the year when the rest of Sindh was drowned out by the worst deluge known in living memory, his fields in the troughs of the dunes did well with the natural irrigation.

In December 2023, he recounted how he had harvested 400 kilograms each of millets, guar beans and mauth. The millets he kept for his family while the rest he sold. However, being the judicious man that he is, Lal Ji retained enough seeds for his 2024 summer plantation.

Another thing that Lal Ji and the others learned in the training was that selling the harvest wholesale fetched better prices. Earlier they would be approached by the bania (Indian caste consisting generally of moneylenders or merchants) from town who would offer the farmers a price for the standing crop. Since these poor farmers did not have the means to truck their harvest to the market, they reluctantly accepted the offer even when they knew it was fifty percent below the market price. Those who did not, would harvest and pack 40-kilogram sacks to haul to market by donkey as and when they required cash. Though they got marginally more per kilogram than selling the standing crop, the price was still below the market rate.

The training taught them to work cooperatively. In late 2022, when the separately planted crops were nearing harvest, the bania arrived with his offer only to be disappointed. He was told that this time the farmers were to bring their goods to him. And so, Lal Ji and five others filled up their sacks, hired a pick-up truck and hauled the harvest to the market where they sought the best buyer. The profit astonished the group. Once again Lal Ji is amazed why they had not thought of this simple mechanism by themselves.

It takes motivation, a bit of awareness raising and the freedom from worry for communities to think of the future. Following the first CWSA intervention, the village organisation repeatedly beset the District Education Officer and got a regular teacher for the village school who, they insisted, must be a local person and not from another district. This was to ensure interest and regular presence. The teacher, a Nabisar young man, now attends school daily.

Meanwhile, Lal Ji sends his two sons and daughter to the school in Nabisar town. They walk the three kilometres to and fro. For pre-teenage children that’s a tough walk through the sand, but Lal Ji says that the produce of the kitchen garden has added so much vigour to their lives for the children to even be tired when they return in the afternoon. “They also take PKR 20 each for something to eat from their school tuck shop,” says the man.

Sixty rupees daily sounds expensive and Lal Ji says he had always given his children this daily allowance. In days of adversity, he borrowed the sum from the village shop keeper. Now he gives it out from his own purse.

Almost breathless in his narration Lal Ji moves on to the boon of hydroponic agriculture. It is the greatest discovery in Lal Ji’s vocabulary. He shows off his trays of young maize seedlings and narrates how he has already fed one round of this miracle to his three goats even as the second is ready for cutting. The two goats that are in milk have markedly increased yield and his wife is able to give the three children half a glass each with breakfast.

A few houses away, young Bilawal is a livestock keeper with thirty goats who had long supplied the village with dairy products. He too has hydroponic trays in a shed for his livestock and has already fed his livestock three rounds from them. He says his four trays are too few for his stock and plans to increase them to twelve.

“Earlier I got not more than 250 ml of milk a day from each goat. This hydroponic feed is always available, even in the driest part of summer. And now my goats yield twice as much milk,” recounts Bilawal. From the five to six litres of milk from ten lactating goats he produces yogurt and clarified butter (ghee). While the yogurt is used at home, the ghee is a cash produce.

Bilawal says that livestock feed was always a problem during the drier months of summer. As a result, milk output almost dried up during those times. But since he has discovered hydroponic gardening, his goats are yielding very well. If things go well, Bilawal hopes to add a couple of buffaloes to his stock before the end of 2024.

It seems the livestock farmers of village Umeed Ali Chandio have hit the lode.

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Sorath lives in village Thantrai, a thirty-minute bus ride from Umerkot, with its schools and colleges. Yet she is a farm labourer and has never received any formal education. So is her husband. But her daughter and three younger sons all attend a primary school about two kilometres from the village. Though she now feels it should have been that way for her as well, but even for her children it was not always like this.

Why, only four years ago, like every other woman, Sorath too was against sending her daughter to school. For one, it was a bit of a walk from home and then girls were not supposed to be educated ‘lest they get strange ideas in their heads’. As well as all that, as farm labourers, she and her husband rarely got work every day and their monthly average income was never above PKR 5000 (Approx. USD 18). That would have been too little to maintain four children’s education despite school being free.

Rewind three years into the past and one finds Community World Service Asia’s social mobilisers visiting the village. The awareness raising sessions that followed had a deep impression on this apparently very clever woman. Here was talk of the equality of genders and of the ability of women to do anything that a man could and yet also give birth which man could not. Here she heard that it was because of all this that the girl child had the same right as her brother to be educated.

“I thought to myself that I have been illiterate all my life and therefore condemned to being a farm labourer who spends full summer days picking cotton for a mere PKR 300 (Approx. USD 1). Why does my daughter have to be similarly handicapped?” says Sorath. After the first couple of sessions with the social mobilisers, Sorath took her daughter to school where she learned that without the children’s B Form1 as issued by the National Database and Registration Authority, the children could not be enrolled.

That was the first thing Sorath and her husband went after. Armed with that document the girl who, in the words of her mother, ‘just growing old helping me with housework’ was put in school. Sorath now became the sole crusader in Thantrai for the cause of girls’ education. She went from door to door exhorting parents to step out and do the needful. Those who mouthed the ancient ‘wisdom’ of denying girls education were sharply rebuked and presented with the example of her own daughter in school. She taunted parents for planning their daughters’ future to be just as their own past and present had been. Unrelenting in her canvassing, Sorath soon had forty girls from her para (precinct) of the village in school.

“My daughter is so happy about her education, she is up early and dressed long before it is time to walk to school. She gets her brothers ready and then goes around the para coaxing the other girls to hurry,” says Sorath. Unsurprisingly, the girl who started late is already in Grade 3 and doing well.

In acknowledgement of her school enrolment campaign, the District Education Office organised a seminar in Umerkot where Sorath was a delegate. But on stage, she experienced a bit of a stage fright and did not say as much as she would otherwise in community consultations and her door to door campaigning. Nevertheless, the officers in attendance saw the fire inside and resolved to take her to the provincial seminar in Karachi. Sorath says she had never even been to Mirpur Khas and was in a state of sheer fright that she would be lost in the city. Even though no one from her family had ever been to the city, she planned to take her husband, father-in-law and her three sons to help her navigate the big city. It took some considerable effort by Nusrat, the CWSA social mobiliser, to assure her that all would be well because she would be with Sorath. In the end, her husband only accompanied her.

Once in the city, Sorath and her man, despite being chaperoned, were alarmed. The tall buildings, the speeding traffic, the endless bustle of the sea of humanity were all new to them. Seeing the signs on the roads, Sorath says she thought of her daughter who would have been able to read for them and know which way to go and a wave of satisfaction swept over her for having done the right thing in sending the child to school.

Before she was called on stage, a short documentary about her life in the village was screened. Only three days earlier, a team had arrived with an ‘airplane’ (drone) to film her at work around the home and now the whole world was seeing how she, a simple farm labourer, spent the days of her life. As she was called to step onto the stage, fright took hold of her. But once behind the lectern, that fear dissolved, and Sorath spoke of how CWSA social mobilisers had altered her view on the need for education for the girl child. And that she became the first mother in the village to send their daughter to school.

She spoke of her tireless campaign around her village for families to procure the B Form for their children without which they could not be in school. And she told the audience how she had virtually harangued women to not be afraid of their daughters’ education. In the end she demanded of the provincial education minister to provide her village a school – one that was preferably secondary level. The applause was respect and appreciation Sorath had never known before. One hopes that the minister’s promise of seeing to it that the village had a school was not drowned out in the din of clapping.

Back at home, she went around telling the others what the big city and its even bigger ocean looked like. Why, she was the first one in the village to have taken this trip. And if like her these women ensured their children’s education, they too were likely to make a similar trip sometime in future.

Sorath recounts that the girls who attend school can clearly be told apart. They have neater appearances, combed hair and they carry themselves with more grace than their peers who have not yet started school. Harchand para, on the other side of the village, still has most girls out of school and that is now Sorath’s target. “There are at least sixty young girls there who I want to see in the classroom,” she says. Sorath has heard girls whispering that they want to be like the visiting social mobilisers of CWSA and she tells them they can be all that and more if they attend school. She admits it was this very strategy that got parents and girls of her own para to seek education.

“I know college education will be expensive. But no matter how long and how hard I have to pick cotton and hoe the landlord’s fields, I’ll do it and see my daughter through to the highest level of education she wants to attain,” says Sorath.

One can see that this is not just an empty boast. It is clear that Sorath’s connection to her land and her commitment to fostering growth is not just in crops, but in the minds and lives of the girls in her village.

  1. Child Registration Certificate (CRC) ↩︎

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In a straight line, Old Subhani lies 30 kilometres due east of Umerkot town; it is a tad longer by the tarmac road. Here Jagisa is a member of the Advisory Committee established in October 2022 after the Community World Service Asia’s training sessions under the HERD project. She says she did not miss a single session. Jagisa is the kind of person who needs no prompting to speak and is quick to relate how being a part of the embroidery makers of Taanka she learned at least one new stitch she had never known before.

“Hurmuchi is a stitch that adds so much value to our work. Earlier we were doing straightforward applique rallis. Now there is greater variety in our products,” says Jagisa. “Just a year before the training a typical ralli bedspread would sell for no more than PKR 800 (Approx. USD 2.8) in the village. It would fetch the same price in Umerkot.”

Now a ralli of the same size fetches PKR 1500 (Approx. USD 5.3) in the village. The better design has greater demand in Umerkot where their menfolk sell them. And if the men only knew the art of haggling, they could get a couple of hundred rupees more. The Taanka group in Old Subhani is also turning out traditional Sindhi embroidered caps. Jagisa relates that the contractor supplies them the raw material and pays labour at PKR 1000 per cap (Approx. USD 3.5). Normally, it would take any woman fifteen to twenty days to turn out one of the more intricately patterned cap. A simpler one takes under ten days. However, if they get their own material, Jagisa says their profit would be in the range of PKR 800 (Approx. USD 6.3).

Kasuba, also a member of the Taanka group, points out that this new stitch being unknown in their village before the training, is now practiced by every applique maker. She says there were several young women who had not joined the training sessions and she has taken it upon herself to teach hurmuchi to all those women and even much younger girls.

Speaking of the drought of 2021, Lakhma, a member of the Resolution Committee, says it was a sort of blessing in disguise for the village. In such a situation in the past, leaving a man or two in each para (precinct) of the village, the community would migrate to the irrigated districts west of Umerkot. “First off, we got monthly rations for six months from CWSA which obviated the need to migrate. That meant our children who would be pulled out of school continued their education. Then we also got two goats per household and that was all the more reason to stay put,” she says.

Lakhma points out how the long trek to the irrigated area sometimes killed off their livestock. But for some years now, they no longer walk as it was before the web of tarmac was laid across the desert. Now they can get on the taxis that zoom around the desert. But living away from home was never free of insecurity and discomfort. There they had to build their temporary shelters of bamboo and wattle, usually open on one side and without a door leaving no room for privacy. “We did not migrate either in 2022 or this year, our children have remained in school and we are in our own homes,” she says.

Now, July has always been the start of the cotton picking season in the canal-irrigated districts and that was one activity the women of Thar never missed. Though the work was very hard, it nonetheless meant good money. But this year when the contractor came to recruit pickers from Old Subhani, Lakhma saw a relative and her husband preparing to go. “They would have been gone for two months and school was reopening in August. I told them to stay. There was plenty of work with the road building crews near the village. Here the men work during the day and come home to sleep with the family,” she says.

Convinced by Lakhma’s argument, the family turned down the contractor’s offer and stayed. The man and his older son are now employed on a road crew and as Lakhma said, both men return in the evening to sleep in their own home. And they together have PKR 1500 to show for their labours. She believes this being the only family that almost went and then didn’t in the end, it was the last time the cotton contractor called upon them. “He knows our ways have changed,” she adds.

On a more physical level, the village is turning green: women are planting trees in their courtyards. Besides the usual ber fruit (Genus Zizyphus) and date palm, women are experimenting with chikoo (sapodilla) and having heard from nearby villages that they do well, are also planting lemon trees.

A new level of awareness is now upon all the women who have undergone the CWSA training sessions. From Old Subhani and other villages, one hears a common refrain on how the gender awareness sessions have helped these communities. Customarily, men were served food first and the best of it too. Women satisfied themselves later with the leftovers. Now families dine together and the menu is shared out equally among girls and boys. The thought is banished that men having to go out to labour required better food. Now, they are mindful of the fact that tending livestock, fetching water from the well and keeping the home clean was also labour intensive.

Kasuba points out that chores outside in the fields are done collectively and when they are finished they collect firewood on the way back. She says that her son returns from school at 2:00 in the afternoon and after his meal, goes out to fetch water and firewood. Time was when firewood collection was considered manful enough, fetching water was strictly a woman’s job. Across the Thar Desert, the greatest mark printed in the sand by CWSA is the reason for communities to abjure the annual transmigration to join the wheat harvest and later cotton picking as a means of earning a livelihood. Their staying home means children who would otherwise have migrated with them in March and lost out two months of schooling before the summer vacations, now continue their education.

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Sindh Province in Pakistan has seen a wave of climate-induced disasters and other crises in recent years. Drought, Locust Attacks, the COVID-19 Pandemic, and Flooding, have all left district Umerkot and Sindh’s desert region particularly hard hit. Umerkot in particular is historically prone to moderate droughts and is categorised as highly vulnerable according to the Drought Vulnerability Index. With the support of Australian partners, Community World Service Asia is working to provide essential health and quality education services to communities affected by climate-related issues and displacement in Umerkot.

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