Concern Blogs

Concern conducts a hygiene session in Abas Khan with program participants. Photo: Joop Koopman, Concern Worldwide

By Joop Koopman, Press Officer, Concern Worldwide US

Seen from the air, the greenness and neat outlines of the farm fields of Punjab stand in sharp contrast with Sindh Province, its much poorer and more desert-like neighbor to the south.

My colleague Susan Finucane and I are flying from Karachi on Pakistan’s southern coast into the Punjabi city of Multan, an historically significant garrison town in the heart of the country that is today a well-kept, clean-swept bustling city. The relative privilege of the place and the orderliness of local traffic are a far cry from the chaos of urban streets we have just left behind in Sindh.

The ordered lushness observed from altitude makes sense. Punjab is literally the ‘land of five rivers’, fertile, relatively affluent and crucial to Pakistan as a grower of wheat and other crops. A kind of cognitive dissonance takes hold.

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Safe water comes to the people of Aboro Jakhro village. Photo: Pakistan, Concern Worldwide

By Joop Koopman, Press Officer, Concern Worldwide US

We are getting into the thick of our mission to report on Concern Worldwide’s emergency response to the Pakistan’s devastating floods. Susan Finucane, Program Officer, and I have flown to Karachi, provincial capital of Sindh, and have made our way by car to Thatta, the ancient center of Muslim learning, and more rural parts of Thatta district, where Concern is working in close partnership with local organizations.

This is our first look at the destruction left in the water’s wake. Thousands of villages in Sindh have been damaged, and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates there are still up to 1 million homeless. Surveying the landscape, the statistics make sense. Highly vulnerable mud houses, characteristic of the extremely poor province, were literally washed away in heavy flooding. Meanwhile, stagnant water in large areas of the province increases the chance of waterborne diseases, a risk factor that will get worse once warmer temperatures return in the spring. Read the rest of this entry »

By Joop Koopman, Press Officer, Concern Worldwide US

Their homes destroyed, villagers in Sindh rely on tarpaulin and bamboo frames for shelter. Photo: Pakistan, Concern Worldwide

Susan Finucane, program officer at Concern Worldwide US, and I have come to Pakistan to report on the progress of Concern’s large-scale emergency program in response to the megadisaster caused by summer’s unprecedented heavy rains and massive flooding that left an area the size of Italy underwater.

Upon our arrival, Dorothy Blane, Concern Worldwide Country Director in Pakistan, briefs us on Concern’s immediate priorities and our approach to this particular disaster, which is informed by a long track record in both long-term development and emergencies in Pakistan. Read the rest of this entry »