CHITRAL, April 27: The backward and remote valley of Madak Lasht got nine small infrastructure projects from the Sarhad Rural Support Programme (SRSP) in the sectors of irrigation, drinking water and protection walls against floods.
In a function held in Madak Lasht valley of Sheshi Koh union council, cheques for the first installments of the projects were handed over to the representatives of the nine community organizations executing the projects out of which four belonged to women.
Speaking on the occasion, the district project manager of the organization, Tariq Ahmed, said 6.868 million rupees were being spent on the projects with the financial assistance of Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF).
He said it was a rare occasion for any NGO in the region to launch nine projects in a single village simultaneously which means that his organization was heeding the marginalized areas to bring them at par with others. Mr. Ahmed said that Madak Lasht was one of such villages whose residents faced the acute shortage of irrigation and drinking water while their agricultural lands were threatened by the flash flood in the summer seasons.
Project manager of PPAF, Salahuddin, said that SRSP had also undertaken a number of initiatives to address the ultra-poverty in the area with a two-pronged plan of providing self-employment by imparting vocational training and providing resources for starting business.
He said that twenty women from the village were provided with vocational training of 3-month duration and sixty unemployed boys were sent to a technical institute in Rawalpindi by the organization with the financial support of PPAF.
He said that self-employment was the best option to mitigate poverty and was far better than providing a one-time financial assistance to a poor and this is the guiding principle of his organization.
The community members Qazi Khurshid Ahmed, Gul Hawa, Nazira Gul and others also spoke on the occasion and eulogized SRSP for launching projects for the amelioration of the residents of Madak Lasht hitherto neglected by the government.
On this occasion, cows, goats and daily-use items were handed over to the villagers identified as ultra-poor to enable them to derive their sustenance.–Zahiruddin
]]>
