“It can’t be done” is a phrase the New Dawn community services group won’t accept!
They’ve heard it said that local women can’t talk on the media about topics that are considered shameful in their culture. Determined to see women in their village able to have more control over their health, the team have come up with a solution.
Whatever we asked, the reply was: “no, we do not have it”, “no one listens to us”, “no one comes to us” or “no one is willing to help us”.
A community leader told HCR’s Hazeen Latif, “we are 3000 houses and an estimated population of 15000 including children and elderly people there is not a single BHU (basic health unit) or even some private clinic. There is no public dispensary. The list goes on and on. This is “Sunda Sar” or “skull of bull” meaning a place of prosperity and power.
Picture this: a village with around 120 households; men, women, children and elderly all living together in conditions very few would dare to live. As the night falls the world beyond the village illuminates with lights glowing from house windows and on the streets. Cool air wafts from air conditioners and fans are blowing. But this village in KPK looks like a campsite with candle lights getting dimmer and dimmer as night get deeper.
Change is happening and its infectious! The development changes we have seen in the last few months in Majukay, a community in Charsadda, Pakistan, were almost unimaginable 4 years ago when the community members set ambitious goals for being a healthy thriving society. It feels like a corner has been turned, and the change is gaining momentum.
“You have given us courage to speak and express our views in front of men!”
One female participant’s words express the exciting outcome of a recent HCR Pakistan workshop on creating community-centred radio. Five women and nine men took part in the workshop in a rural village in Pakistan.
At the start of the workshop, the participants said they wanted to raise their voices on behalf of the poor. One woman said she wanted to be a champion for those who are marginalised.
Participant and facilitator at community-centred media workshop, Pakistan, Jan 2019. (HCR Pakistan)
A health worker in the community is already using radio to include marginalised voices in community conversations. He goes around the village speaking to a variety of people, recording their opinions on health and development topics. He and the HCR Pakistan director, Mr Hazeen Latif are eager for the radio to be even more inclusive by building a team of volunteers within the community to help design and produce the programmes too.
The group learned the basic principles of community centred radio, how to make Public Service Announcements (PSAs) and how to interview people for radio. The quality of the practical work was very high, one team’s work reaching what we call ABS – Above Broadcast Standard.
Male participants prepare a PSA incommunity centred media workshop, Pakistan, Jan 2019. (HCR Pakistan)
Yet a big challenge in this traditionally male-dominated culture was how to have men and women participating in the workshop together. Sitting in the same room for a public event is not the norm.
As the practical exercises began, the women’s voices were too quiet to be heard. The women realised that if they wanted to be inclusive activists, they had to overcome their fears of speaking out. As the course continued, they found more confidence. They said later that they began to see the facilitator as a friendly, fatherly figure, making the workshop a safe environment for speaking. The men were impressed at how passionately the women would argue their points publicly.
Confidence grew within the workshop, but the trust that led to this has been growing over several years. Mr Latif and the community health worker have collaborated on the Naway Saher project for about four years, facilitating a variety of community development activities. They have patiently built trust with each other and with the community.
Trust has been essential in arriving at the point where the workshop was possible. Trust was also essential for the workshop to become truly inclusive. Trust gives hope that the new team will be successful in their goal to be champions for the poor and marginalised.
Mr Hazeen Latif and Naway Saher project coordinator, Pakistan, Jan 2019 (HCR Pakistan)
Day 11 of #16DaysofActivism
By Johnny Fisher and Hazeen Latif
This year the UK celebrated 100 years of women being able to vote. Before that democracy was interpreted to mean “rule by the men” rather than “rule by the people”. This development has been repeated over and over again. Women around the world are be able to participate fully and equally in decision-making at community and national level. Sadly, in many communities, people are unaware of these national developments and the threat of violence is often used to prevent women from speaking out in public conversations.
In Pakistan women do participate in public life and Pakistan is one of an increasing number of countries to have had a female prime minister. But in some Pakistani communities it would be considered offensive for a woman to engage in influential conversations at community or family level. Women who try to do so face threats of violence and exclusion.
HCR supports a community-centred radio project in one such community. Community activists have worked together to get training and put community radio programmes on air. However, the participants in the radio work are all men. Women do participate in complementary off-air activities, and one lady, Zakia*, has been running health and hygiene workshops for women and girls. Another older lady in the community has offered her home for Zakia to run vocational groups for women and girls. The older lady said, “We have to do this, whatever the cost to me”. Inspired by this Zakia also spoke to an HCR associate about getting involved in radio. She realised it could be very dangerous for her as it might invite repercussions from the wider community. But she believes that radio by women and girls, for women and girls would extend the benefits of the workshops to more people. Zakia said to our associate, “Someone must stand up and speak, and I will do it”.
HCR is supporting women who want to engage in public life through radio. We are also speaking up for the many women whose voices are not heard because they have been intimidated into silence by the threat of violence.
*Not her real name
in some Pakistani communities it would be considered offensive for a woman to engage in influential conversations at community or family level.
Day 6 of #16DaysofActivism
By Stephanie Mooney
Each year, 12 million girls are married before the age of 18 (Girls not Brides). Early marriage violates a girl’s rights to health, education and opportunities in the workplace. It can often expose girls to violence throughout their lives and trap them in poverty. This is an issue that cuts across countries, cultures and religions.
Pakistan continues to rank near the bottom of the gender inequality index, with Pakistani women facing terrible inequality in access to health care, education and work. One of the solutions to assisting girls to escape discriminatory customary practices like early child marriage is providing education and skill building opportunities.
HCR faces these issues in some of the communities in which we work. Recently, in a village in Pakistan, an HCR associate was confronted with child marriage at a women’s empowerment session. A girl, aged 15, had an eighteen-month-old baby and was married to a 45-year-old man. She is a mother, when she herself is still a child. In a culture that tends to be patriarchal, the birth of a son is celebrated as boys are considered assets who will provide support for ageing parents, whereas a daughter is often considered a liability. This traditional culture, along with poverty, reinforces practices like early child marriages.
HCR has made gender a major priority in all its projects. We believe that human rights are essential to the full development of individuals and communities, and that gender equality is a basic human right. In Pakistan we use media to continue to work towards the education of girls and women and target many of the underlying issues that keep them in a cycle of poverty.
Early marriage violates a girl’s rights to health, education and opportunities in the workplace
By Hazeen Latif
When it comes to community empowerment, service providers often look at what resources and strengths THEY have and what THEY can do to meet community needs. But it is too easy to overlook what the community already has, to meet its own needs, even among poor and marginalised communities. As a core value of HCR, whenever we work with communities we always begin by listening to them and helping them to listen to each other, exploring what assets and strengths they already have, before we begin to explore what things need to be improved (see blog “It’s a ting thing”).
In our work among village communities in Pakistan’s KPK province, for example, it would have been far too easy to focus on the desperation felt by many young people, which has often resulted in frustration, substance abuse and even gang violence. But as we began our listening activities, we heard stories of youngsters who really wanted to do something meaningful with their lives, but didn’t know how. We also found tremendous energy, talent and enthusiasm for sports as well as plenty of open ground to organize sporting activities such as cricket competitions.
With HCR’s help, the young people recently came together to register a community-based organization calling themselves, “New Dawn Community Services Group” and one of their first activities has been to set up a volleyball court on some unused open ground.
A “New Dawn” for volleyball in a village in KPK Province, Pakistan
“New Dawn” Volleyball has now become an important feature of village life for both young and old alike as some gather to play and others to watch. As one father told his son as he came in starving, after a long game of volleyball: “It is a miracle that you are home early today”.
Among other community support activities, one of New Dawn’s next goals is to bring neighbouring communities together to play a cricket tournament, something we first tried successfully in 2015.
Besides taking young people off the streets and giving them healthy activity to do, sport really does bring people together, but best of all, it’s completely run by the community and for the community. And it all started with a simple act of listening!
On 26th February, Hazeen Latif, Director of HCR in Pakistan visited Charsadda to present a refresher course for a previous radio group who were trained in 2014. The meeting was held at the residence of Asad Ullah, an active community member and a certificate holder of the HCR Radio Skills Training Workshop.
The content of the refresher course covered the strengths and weaknesses of radio, types of microphone, how to use the microphone, and target the audience. The participants found the training valuable, and in the words of Asad Ullah, “this refresher course has helped me get my confidence back in using the microphone and availing myself of every opportunity as host of a program on my local FM station. Thanks so much to HCR for their follow up and support."
Hazeen as he facilitates the refresher course
By Hazeen Latif
Sahib Gul may be disabled, but his talent for art and music speaks for itself and he is a person who never gives up. “My name is Sahib Gul, which means king of the roses,” he told a meeting of the newly established ‘New Dawn Community Services’, a community-based organization (CBO) in a village in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. “I love to sing, it’s my passion,” he said, as he began to demonstrate his great voice and amazing ability to “beatbox”.
Sahib Gul is just one of the many community members that has benefited from HCR’s ‘New Dawn’ project, which inspired the local community to register a CBO to help us bring health and development to the village. “I may be crippled and disabled,” Sahib Gul told me, “but I want to help my community.”
We have been working in KPK Province since 2014 on a number of projects including micro-enterprise development, a mobile health clinic, radio programming and most recently a new well for clean drinking water. The well has been so successful that many have stopped going to the local health worker with stomach complaints. Zahid, who has a clinic nearby, showed me the incoming patients register saying, “Now, fewer patients are coming with gastrointestinal problems.” Sahib Gul has also been feeling much better after using the new bore water.
It’s a privilege to be working in this area, with people who really want to make a difference and take responsibility for their own change. To me, they are local heroes. As I met recently with the community for the second monthly meeting to form the CBO, we began to lay plans for next year, to do more to help in the area of health, education and we will be developing FM radio programmes to be a voice for the voiceless.
Local artist and musician Sahib Gul demonstrates the art of beatboxing
By Jon Hargreaves
“You have lost me my business,” health clinic owner, Zahid jokingly tells HCR Pakistan director Hazeen Latif. He was speaking at the opening of the new drinking well in his village, provided by HCR, funded by an Australian church. “Since this well opened three weeks ago,” Zahid says, “I am selling less Flagyl because fewer people are having stomach problems.” With a smile on his face he says, “this water is even better than Nestlé's.” The well project was a result of a consultation facilitated by HCR which identified some of the main needs facing the community.
Schoolboy tries the clean drinking water from the new well in his village, KPK province, Pakistan
HCR has been working in this village in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province since 2013, helping the community understand and tackle their health and social development challenges. “It has been such a privilege to walk alongside this community for the last three years and feel like I’m part of them,” says Hazeen. “During that time we’ve seen some great things happen, like the medical camp that HCR sponsored with a local partner. We also sponsored a community cricket match and have done a micro-enterprise project, "he added,"but perhaps the most difficult time was when a nearby school was attacked by terrorists and I experienced the grief the community was going through."
HCR has been working in Pakistan in development and disaster response since 2013, with a vision of seeing whole of life transformation in some of the most challenging places in the country.
Well-digging in KPK, Pakistan is very manual (Video)
