SWAT RELIEF INITIATIVE INC
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Mission Statement
Swat Relief Initiative will strive to improve the lives of women and children in Pakistan through healthcare, education, economic growth, provision of clean water and a sustainable environment. Swat Relief Initiative will also empower disadvantaged societies through community development, social mobilization and awareness programs to help them achieve a better quality of life
About This Cause
Swat Relief Initiative (SRI) works in the Swat Valley, one of the most stunningly beautiful places in Pakistan, famous for its breathtaking landscapes, snow-capped mountains, gushing streams and fruit-laden orchards. Even Queen Elizabeth, on her visit, in 1961, fell in love with Swat, and called it Switzerland of the east. The reasons why we work in the Swat valley is because SRI's founder, Zebu Jilani is from Swat, and personally knows the people, understand their culture and speaks the language. She also belongs to the ruling family of Swat, so the people know her and trust her to continue her grandfather and great grandfather’s legacy of promoting education, health care, economic development. But the main reason why SRI works in Swat is because its people have suffered through four major disasters in the past six years, including a Taliban takeover in 2008, army action and refugee crisis in 2009, mega floods in 2010, and a major earthquake in October of 2012. These catastrophes have had a devastating effect on the area, damaging much of the infrastructure, and destroying the economy. Residents, especially women and children, have suffered immensely as they are already a vulnerable segment of society. To mitigate these disastrous circumstances SRI has started a long term and holistic Development Program which provides opportunities for women and children to have access to education, healthcare, economic opportunities and clean water which helps them come out of dependency and move towards independence. The five main components of SRI's Development Program are: 1. Community building through social mobilization 2. Healthcare 3. Education 4. Economic development and 5. A sustainable environment 1. Community building through social mobilization The main component of SRI's programs is community building through social mobilization. This program is the backbone of all of its initiatives. SRI’s Social Mobilization starts with helping each village to become organized through a democratic process, resulting in the formation of Village Development Organizations, or VDO’s. We encourage all households in our villages to get involved in the election process of the VDO leaders, who commit to work for the common good of the community. In the training session for the VDO’s, SRI teaches villagers the importance of education, healthcare clean water and economic empowerment of women, and convinces them to partner with us to conduct programs in their villages. After SRI’s training sessions, villagers become convinced that the only path to development is through community organization and equal opportunities for men and women. Our strategy in social mobilization creates hundreds of volunteers in our target villages, who work with us for the advancement of their development, making our programs long lasting and sustainable, because of the involvement of the communities we serve. 2. Healthcare SRI's Preventive healthcare is active in 9 villages with a population of over 18,000 people. Our target groups are women and children, who are the most vulnerable in a male dominated society. The World Health Organization says that both direct interventions like primary healthcare, and indirect interventions, such as improving economic conditions, education, provision of clean water and community development, impact maternal and child health. SRI improves maternal and child health through both direct and indirect interventions in accordance with guidelines set by WHO. The main goals of our health program are - Reducing infant mortality - Improving maternal health, and, - Reducing the incidence of major diseases such as polio, hepatitis and TB We achieve these goals by - Monitoring pregnant and lactating mothers - Growth monitoring of children to detect malnutrition - Referring malnourished and underweight children to doctors - Timely referrals of pregnant women to skilled birth attendants for assistance during childbirth - Vaccinating children as well as women of reproductive age - Conducting Health and Nutrition Seminars to prevent malnutrition and dehydration - the main causes of infant mortality - Health camps and mother/child workshops - Advice on the use of contraceptives and motivation to use them 3. sustainable environment There is a dire need for safe drinking water in our target area, since every year thousands of people die or get sick from waterborne diseases. Before we started working in her village, Salma had lost 4 children to dysentery and cholera, as the water in her village was coming from a polluted source. Now that SRI had built a water filtration plants and hand pumps in her village, Salma’s children’s chance of getting waterborne illnesses has been reduced by 90%. We have found, that providing access to clean water has the potential to saves thousands of lives. Projects in clean water are: 1. Building hand pumps and other clean water projects. Our goal is to build 60 hand pumps all our 9 villages. 2. We are building aquifer hand pumps. Our goal is to build 60 hand pumps all our target villages, so as to reduce water shortages as well as provide clean drinking water to thousands of villagers. So far we have built 40 hand pumps and 2 water filtration plants 3. We are also building new water schemes. One of our villages, Katair, had faulty pipelines, through which they got their only source of water. In the rainy season, when there was flooding, the sewer water would get into the pipes and contaminate the drinking water, leading to disease and death among the population. 4. Economic development SRI trains hundreds of women and young boy in vocational skills. We have started 3 Vocational training Centers for women and one for vulnerable youth, who where susceptible to being influenced by extremist ideologies. Some youth were even recruited as suicide bombers when the Taliban took over Swat. In the SRI Vocational Centers, in addition to vocational training, we have adult literacy programs, computer and business training, which all ensure the success or our students. These students also receive tool kits to help them become financially independent. Akhtar Begum, a poor widow, reached out to SRI for help. She told SRI that she was a destitute widow who did not have the means to make a living or send her daughters to school. She was living with her brother-in-law who inherited her husbands property because she was Mirat, meaning someone who is cursed because they only have female children. After Aktar Begam graduated from the SRI Vocational Training Center, she started her own dressmaking and embroidery business, and now earns a respectable living which enables her to educate her daughters and lead an independent life. 5. Education In Education SRI has taken steps to realize SRI new goal to put 20,000 children in School by 2020: 1. We are building schools for communities who live in very remote and inaccessible areas, where children have never had an opportunity to get an education. 2. SRI is also making ghost schools functional. These are hundreds of abandoned government schools with perfectly viable buildings and access to the community, but for years have been lying empty when they could be educating children. This is an extremely low cost program because after SRI renovates the school and convinces the education department to send teachers there, the government becomes responsible for the schools expenses for coming generations of school children who will study in these schools. 3. In some communities, where girls do not have an opportunity to go to middle school and beyond, we rent a building to start classes for these children. This is an extremely important initiative, because without this opportunity, many girls would be forcibly married off between the ages of 11 and 15 setting the stage for a life-time of abuse and misery for young girls like Ana, one of our students. 4. SRI has started a program to combat child labor through education, by giving children who have missed out on going to school a chance to get formal schooling since they were put to work instead of attending school. Our social mobilizers identify these children and convince their parents that it is in their best interest to send these children to school. We are hoping that this educational opportunity will change the lives of these children for the better. 5. We have a two-tier scholarship program. SRI’s funds girls from poor families to attend school, in order to provide gender equality. Even though government schools have no fees, the reason why girls are not sent to school, is because poor families have limited resources and usually give priority to buying uniforms and books to send their boys to school but girls are often left behind. Another SRI scholarship initiative focuses on selecting students with high academic achievement from schools in SRI’s target villages and gives them a scholarship to transfer to a more suitable institution. These girls are extremely intelligent and gifted, but do not have the means to excel and reach their full academic potential at their existing schools. Our scholarship program allows these talented girls a chance to change their future by giving them quality education, so they can pursue a career-path which will greatly improve their family’s lives for generations to come. In keeping with the genuine spirit of philanthropy, SRI adopted a unique charter which sets it apart from other organizations. At the organizational level we work as volunteers and not take any salary. As founders and board member of SRI we decided to pay for all the overhead of the organization from our own pockets, so that ONE HUNDRED % of donations can go directly towards programs that help disadvantaged women and children. Lastly, Zebu Jilani, President of SRI and Arshad Jilani, Vice President of SRI, spent 3-4 months of the year, in Swat so they can better monitor all of SRI's programs and make sure they were running efficiently and in compliance with SRI's zero tolerance for corruption.