This year’s monsoon rains have wreaked tremendous devastations in Pakistan. Sindh Province, where CED’s long-standing partner Participatory Village Development Programme (PVDP) works, has been one of the worst affected areas. Their Executive Director Dominic Stephen wrote the following about the recent disaster:
“The monsoon rains (June to August 2022) and the consequent flash floods in Pakistan has wreaked tremendous devastations across the country. The southern areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan have been hard-hit. Out of these, the province of Baluchistan and Sindh are worse affected. The system of life is totally paralyzed in the areas where thousands of households have been submerged into water. Several thousand families have been displaced and exposed to harsh-weather under open sky, in particular in Baluchistan and Sindh. The floods sustained multidimensional calamities and destruction to roads, water-reservoirs (dams), drinking water sources, bridges, electricity, agriculture, horticulture, livestock, shops and markets. Accessibility and connectivity to several villages has been severely disrupted”.
PVDP is working in the most challenging, poverty and disaster-stricken districts of Sindh to support the most vulnerable within the community. PVDP have completed a Rapid Humanitarian Needs Assessment. Their aim was to ascertain the precise situation of the people affected by the flooding in three Districts of Sindh Province, focusing on their most critical needs, particularly access to food, water, sanitation, hygiene and social protection.
PVDP has identified that people have been displaced into road side camps with no access to food, clean water or sanitation. Furthermore, many have no shelter, raising concerns about protection for women and girls. PVDP’s team has recommended:
- People in the road side camps come from different districts. As a result PVDP’s response will be camp-focussed and not village-focussed in the first phase of relief.
- PVDP will provide cash instead of commodities to ensure that communities have purchasing power to provide for their basic needs. This will also avoid diverting huge amount of money to big vendors.
Please will you pray about the situation, asking God to help organisations such as PVDP to provide shelter, food, water and sanitation for everyone who has been affected by the flooding in Sindh Province. If you would like to give to support PVDP’s work you can make a donation via CED.