Dr. Sania Nishtar
Tucked away in Northern Pakistan, Kalaam with its gem green forests and rolling mountains is famed for its beauty. However, behind the picturesque scene the harsh winters translate into high unemployment rates and inevitable poverty, forcing many into nakal makani (seasonal migration) to avoid starvation.
Yormis bibi and two of her teenage sons Rahul and Wassim, relocate to Punjab, a southern more fertile province of the country, every winter where they harvest sugar cane and load it on to huge trucks. The works is hard, the days long and the pay is barely enough to feed themselves and get shelter. Yormis’ frail husband stays back in the village where he is looked after by a family friend and on her return every spring, Yormis repays their debt. This cycle has repeated for the past five years and has locked the whole family into a cycle of poverty.
This year however, things took a turn for the worse when after four long months of toiling and saving, disaster struck. As Yormis and her two hard working sons headed back to Kalam, they were involved in a serious road accident.
Yormis fractured both legs and Wassim fractured his ankle. At Heartfile Health Financing, we first heard about Yormis’ situation when she landed in an Islamabad hospital and needed financing for the operation; we arranged that within 24 hours. During a follow up phone call, we found that Yormis had gone back to live in her village with no health facilities and although she was recovering she needed to visit a clinic 40 km away for follow up visits. Wassim remains on crutches and there is now no earning member in the family and they are subsisting on handouts.
If you wish to help Yormis and Wassim, please call the Heartfile follow-up department (051 261 4472 9-5 pm [Pakistan standard time] on working days) so that we can connect them with you enabling you to help them directly
Dr. Sania Nishtar is the founder and President of Heartfile Health Financing http://www.sanianishtar.info
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