“Pakistan Hai Hamara” Initiatives

SSGWI believes that positive change comes from empowering everyone in a community. In rural areas in South Asia, women are often caregivers for homes and children. Proper child-rearing is integral to inspiring change and can be fundamentally transformed with proper education for the caretaker. We believe in the ancient African proverb, “When you educate a woman, you educate a nation.”

Driven by the goal to promote equality and female empowerment, SSGWI adopted The Spring School in Mansehra, Pakistan, in 2008. At the time, the school building was dilapidated and hazardous to the children. Boys and girls were limited to learning from preschool until Grade 7 only. Utilities and supplies were either rundown or scarce. SSGWI sought to adopt the school and provide free education to the girls, who were otherwise discouraged from attending and deprived of school funding.

Since then, SSGWI has shifted the school to a modern building, expanded to provide labs and vocational training services, and added classes up to Grade 10. Dr. Samina also provided health and wellness sessions on Skype for older students. Since the initiative began, hundreds of young women have been provided with free education from childhood to adulthood.

Future plans include upgrading the school to college-level, along with acquiring college accreditation. There are also plans to build a playground for students to promote a culture of health and fitness.

Adopted a Village
Rural areas in southern Pakistan were severely affected by flooding in 2010. Many villages in the province of Sindh have washed away, and over 20 million people were displaced. Part of SSGWI’s mission of creating opportunity and empowerment includes providing communities with basic resources and infrastructure to build itself forward. In the aftermath of the 2010 floods, Dr. Samina visited Sindh with the intent to adopt and rebuild a village.

Following months of searching, she identified a village in need in Sajawal, Thatta. Residents of the village, named village Sulaiman Mallah, shared their hardships of losing shelter and sustenance to the floods. A mother of twin infants approached Dr. Samina and, on hearing of her medical background, urged her to adopt one of her children as “she could no longer take care of both.” Overwhelmed, Dr. Samina decided to adopt the village in 2012.

Health is an integral part of SSGWI’s mission. For Dr. Samina, it was not enough to simply adopt a village and rebuild its infrastructure. Equally important was ensuring the well-being of its residents to empower them to become agents of positive change. Initially, the most rampant diseases in village Sulaiman Mallah were skin infections and respiratory diseases, both of which were largely a result of lack of hygiene.

A lack of awareness of proper hygiene and lack of resources left a majority of the population suffering from various ailments. With that in mind, Dr. Samina introduced a medical clinic for her adopted village. The population of 700, including children, youths, adults, and the elderly, receive free medical examination and treatment annually.

Villagers had been suffering from severely poor dental hygiene, largely due to lack of resources and intake of betel leaf seeds, which creates the risk of mouth cancer. Dr. Samina supplied basic hygienic materials, including soap, tooth powder, shampoo, and more to the residents.

With the help of a translator, she gives wellness talks every year on managing proper hygiene and self-care with limited resources. Children were incentivized to brush regularly with promises of tokens, which had positive results. Village Sulaiman Mallah now has routinized hygiene and successfully reduced the number of cases of dental and other hygiene-related concerns that arise.

The massive flooding of 2010 had deprived not only the villagers of their homes but also their personal belongings. Dr. Samina supplied the entire village of 700 with clothing and blankets in 2012.

Each household was provided with three blankets. Families were also given pots and pans to increase their self-sustenance. Blankets were again distributed in 2015-16. During Eid-ul-Fitr in 2018, women and men were gifted new clothes to celebrate the religious holiday.

Dr. Samina wanted to provide education of all forms to village Sulaiman Mallah. She inquired among the young students what they were eager to learn. The students, who are all Muslim but lacked religious education, shared an eagerness to learn about the Islamic faith.

Dr. Samina hired a religious instructor in 2013 to provide lessons for all ages. Since then, children of both the adopted village and neighboring villages come to receive lessons from the instructor.

Dr. Samina provides rations to her village biannually, in the month of Ramadan and in the winter. Forty-three households are supplied with rations. Often ration distributions are followed by a dinner for the villagers along with singing and dancing to create harmony and positivity in the community.

In 2020, the villagers were supplied with rations during the month of Ramadan and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic across Sindh. This was especially helpful for families who were unable to go to work and earn wages due to the nationwide lockdown.

In 2019, Dr. Samina expanded her outreach to include other neighboring and needy villages in the Feed the Hungry initiative. Over 250 families were provided with rations and essential items during the month of Ramadan and in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which left countless villagers deprived of work due to the national lockdown across Pakistan.

Prior to adoption, the village Sulaiman Mallah relied mainly on a nearby lake for its source of water. However, the lake dries up for four months each year, depriving the residents of regular drinking water. In 2017, Dr. Samina introduced hand pumps to the village to ensure an adequate and consistent water supply throughout the year.

Over time, news reports emerged of neighboring villagers coming by to collect water from the adopted village. Their own supplies were scarce. In response, Dr. Samina expanded her water pump initiative to the neighboring village. Future steps will involve providing other nearby villages with water pumps to guarantee adequate water supply.