Young boys and their goat in Pakistan. Photo: PWS&D.
Women in Pakistan are accessing loans to start small businesses and earn money for their families. Photo: PWS&D.
Hameeda used her loan to purchase goats for milk and income. Photo: PWS&D.
A self-help group for women in Pakistan. Photo: PWS&D.
Read more entries from the Pakistan Travel Blog
Mirpurkhas, Pakistan
PWS&D communications coordinator, Barb Summers, is currently visiting program partners in Pakistan along with PWS&D program coordinator, Alex Macdonald, and Canadian Foodgrains Bank communications officer, Emily Cain.
Everywhere we travel here, a giant dust cloud follows close behind. The land is so dry that the earth cracks and the sun scorches. Having arrived in the city of Mirpurkhas, Sindh province, Pakistan, I’ve visited several remote villages where our partners, Church World Service – Pakistan/Afghanistan, are implementing a variety of programs to establish food security for people living in the region.
Our first visit was to the community of Babar Kaloi. We drove along bumpy dirt trails, darting and weaving between camels pulling oversized wagons of sugarcane stalks, auto rickshaws with horns blaring, fruit stands lined up dangerously close to traffic, donkey carts clattering, stray dogs skulking, and goats crossing when you least expect them to.
Eventually, we arrived at Babar Kaloi, a small village of about 250 people gathered together in homes made of dried mud. It’s an agricultural community where the people have about 2-3 acres of land to grow everything their family needs to eat. Most men in the area are unemployed, taking jobs as day labourers whenever they can get it. The majority are illiterate and crop production is top priority.
Explaining Food Security
“Food security” is one of those phrases that feels a little too jargon-y. I often worry that people really don’t know what I’m talking about when I refer to PWS&D’s food security projects. In Canada, where the population spends an average of 10% of their income on their diets—one of the lowest grocery bills in the world—with grocery stores that exhibit a selection of over 30,000 different types of food, food security may seem a little hard to relate to.
Things are very different here. In developing countries like Pakistan, where the Human Development Index states that two-thirds of the population survives on less than $2 a day, people may spend up to 80% of their income on food. Having enough food is an ongoing struggle. This isn’t just about filling a hungry stomach; it’s about finding ways to ensure food is available for families every day, year round, for the long-term. Unfortunately, right now too many people simply do not have access to enough nourishing food, or the money to purchase it.
Little Adjustments Lead to Success
Small adjustments to village life in Babar Kaloi are making big changes in both the production of food and its availability. Our program partners are teaching simple agricultural techniques that are improving access to food, like how to create small gardens to grow vegetables, how to raise livestock, how to preserve food and how to build and maintain irrigation ponds.
As well, women in the community have established self-help groups where they talk about ways to make money and monitor a savings fund that allows women to access loans in order to start small businesses for extra income. Some women start modest shops, selling snacks out of a trunk and earning money that they use to buy food or household necessities. Some use their loan to purchase livestock, like cattle or goats, for extra milk and meat.
Hameeda’s Story
That’s exactly what Hameeda did. Hameeda proudly took me to see the two goats she purchased using a loan of only 2,000 rupees (about $23) from the self-help group. She’s raising them so she’ll have milk for her five children and hopes to sell the goats when they’re older for the income and to purchase a bigger goat for even more milk. She’s already paid back her loan and is grateful for the opportunity the self-help group has provided her.
Making Food Security a Reality
There’s a lot of work to do in Babar Kaloi, just like many other communities in the area. Women walk 10km to collect water every day and drought is an ongoing problem. Children suffer from too many hygiene-related health issues and dangerous pollutants from a government-run sugar cane factory contaminate a nearby water source that is used as drinking water for people and animals. However, our program partners are witnessing how small changes are making lasting, tangible improvements—and I’ve seen it myself, as well. Together, we’re finding ways to tackle long-term poverty and make food security a reality.
Presbyterian World Service & Development is the development and relief agency of The Presbyterian Church in Canada. Visit the PWS&D Facebook page.
