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Report Back from Pakistan

Updated January 2006

Background

On Saturday October 8, 2005 at 8:50 in the morning a massive earthquake struck Pakistan and India. Conservative estimates put the quake's death toll at 86,000. Over 100,000 people were injured, and 2.8 million were left without homes.

In the aftermath of the disaster, MADRE is partnering with our long-time friends, Shirkat Gah, a women's community-based organization. Shirkat Gah is delivering relief—including food, baby bottles, blankets, and temporary shelters—to women and families in remote communities. Large-scale relief efforts have been slow to reach rural areas and UNICEF fears that 10,000 children may die of hunger, hypothermia, and disease if aid does not reach them soon. Shirkat Gah's experience and connections give it access to many of these remote communities not being served by large-scale aid efforts.

So far, the support of MADRE members has made it possible for Shirkat Gah to:

• Provide food and shelter for hundreds of families in difficult to access communities, including Paniola Tehsil, Rawalakot, and the Sanghar area.
• Give warm clothes, including heavy sweaters, ponchos, hats, scarves, and boots; and bedding, including blankets and mattresses; to hundreds of women and families in Battagram, Muzzafarabad, Mansera, and other areas.
• Deliver baby bottles and warm baby clothing, including buntings and blankets, to infants and children who arrived at relief camps wrapped in nothing but plastic sheets.

With MADRE's continued support . . .

Shirkat Gah is focusing on providing shelter, bedding, and warm clothes to families that are now at risk for hypothermia and pneumonia in the freezing winter of Pakistan's remote mountainous regions. The tents that were initially supplied by some relief agencies have not been able to withstand the winter weather. In response, Shirkat Gah has consulted with local architects and community members to create a design for safe, winter-worthy, semi-permanent structures that can be erected quickly for under $250. With the support of MADRE members, they are now racing to erect the structures. So far, they have:

• Provided semi-permanent shelters for over 450 families in Punjgran, Paniola, and Kohistan. These shelters are designed to last several winters, and are made of re-usable materials which can be used to create more permanent shelters once the winter has passed.
• Delivered bedding, sweaters, and other warm clothing to hundreds of families who had received almost no other aid.
• Provided matches and cooking utensils as well as flour, sugar, rice, and other food supplies to affected families.

None of Shirkat Gah's work—delivering baby bottles to infants, providing mothers with blankets for their families, and erecting reliable shelters for people facing a long, hard winter—would be possible without the support of people like you.

Please, if you are able, donate today to help provide food, shelter, and clothing to earthquake-affected families in remote regions of Pakistan.

Donations can also be mailed to MADRE at the address below. Please make checks payable to MADRE and indicate "Pakistan earthquake relief" in the memo line of the check.

MADRE
121 West 27th Street, #301
New York, NY 10001