Pakistan

Islamic Help donating for Pakistan floods

International economists have predicted Pakistan will grow strongly in the 21st century but decades of political and civil strife have left the country wracked by social instability, corruption and terrorism. Nearly a third of its population – 58 million - is in poverty and suffers from serious deficiencies in basic services such as transport and electricity power.

This has been compounded by natural disasters which have often left the authorities relying on international aid and humanitarian organisations for emergency relief and basic amenities. In recent years these have included the 2005 earthquake in which 73,000 people were killed and more than 3 million left homeless, and the floods of 2010 which affected an area the equivalent size of England, caused more than 1,600 deaths and caused damage estimated at more than £20 billion.

Major floods have hit Pakistan every year since 2010 – in 2013 more than 200 people died and in 2014 the death toll was over 300 and more than 2 million people were affected

Islamic Help has been established in Pakistan since starting work as an international NGO in 2003. One of our core countries of operation, our programmes range from disaster relief to women’s education and training. We look after nearly 1,000 orphans and our innovative Smiles Better programme to aid acid attack survivors has won international acclaim and is the subject of the Oscar and Emmy awards-winning documentary Saving Face.

Our early work earned Islamic Help the Star of Sacrifice Award in 2006 from then President General Pervez Musharraf. Every year since 2010, our emergency relief has concentrated primarily on helping flood victims. For example, in 2010 we provided food packs for nearly 125,000 people, medical aid for more than 170,000 and launched a major programme to rebuild hundreds of destroyed homes.

In the 2013 floods we provided food and water to 17,700 people, set up relief camps and installed water pumps. In September 2014, just days after floods swept southwards Kashmir to Sindh, we helped thousands of families with food packs, cooked meals, clean water via our Nomad filtration trucks and medical help in an inflatable hospital where 900 patients were treated in just three days.

RECORDED ACHIEVEMENT

Within days of September’s floods, we were distributing at least 60,000 gallons – enough for more than 30,000 people - of clean water in affected areas daily.