Concern Blogs

Rakesh Katal leads then Deputy Minister of Community Development and Social Services, Moses Muteteka to officially launch Concern’s livestock and farming inputs distribution program in Mongu District. Photo: Zambia, Concern Worldwide

Concern Zambia Country Director Rakesh Katal recounts the joys and challenges of working with communities in rural Zambia

Our organization works in the remotest areas of Zambia where the terrain can be rough and reaching program participants means crossing rivers, wetlands and vast swathes of sandy territory.  In some cases, apart from the lower level government structures, Concern is the only development organization addressing the needs of the community.

Doing this is both a challenge and a delight. A challenge because the needs of the people, arising from the high levels of poverty, obviously overwhelm our human and financial capacity; but a delight because we are glad to be at the service of the people who desperately need development to change their way of life.

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A family at their tent in Farooqabad Village, Charsadda District. Photo: Jennifer O'Gorman, Concern Worldwide

Last week Mubashir Ahmed Concern’s Assistant Country Director visited a school-turned-distribution center in Charsadda, located in the province of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa (KPK), where he met with several people whose lives are hanging in the balance as a result of the recent flooding in Pakistan.

Single mother of three Mina Gul was working as a maid, she told me, before the floodwaters raged through her village of Sanamgari in the Charsadda district of Pakistan’s northwest. She was thankful, she said, that the waters came in the night because otherwise she may not have been with her family to take them to safety. Read the rest of this entry »