Pakistan

Kasur!

SOS-Children’s Villages doesn’t just look after orphan children. To make sure children have better opportunities they help rural areas to become self sufficient. SOS hopes to create a better environment for the children and their families. We wanted to see how it all worked and asked if we could visit one of the projects in Kasur, a poor area that was affected largely by massive floodings leaving thousands of households stranded.

We jump in a 4 wheel drive as the area has a poor infrastructure and drive for an hour or so along the border area with India. Kasur is a land tong that stretches into India, the area was easily cut off due to floodings of the river. Together with another organisation SOS build a bridge to solve this problem. But problems of schooling and health and sanitation needed to be dealt with as well. So there we were, bumping around through rice fields and little villages passing the border at only a few hundred meters. What we did not know was the fact that there was an electrified fence all along the border with Pakistan for hundreds of kilometres. After quite an amazing ride we arrive at a little school. The school was built by the government but due to the infrastructure and the remoteness of the area they had forgotten to arrange teachers. SOS now has trained a teacher and she is trying to teach the children as good as she can. We were shocked to see a hundred children packed in a little room but were glad to see all children happy to have an opportunity to learn. Without SOS the children still wouldn’t have got the opportunity to go to school.

After that we visited a womens council. SOS started to educate women in the rural area as they have a good insight in what is needed in the villages and especially what is needed for the children. With only little support from SOS the women council managed to build a sewer system in one of the villages leaving all rubbish off the street. We arrived late at the SOS village with another thousands images richer!