Chairman Pak-Qatar Takafal Group Sheikh Ali Bin Abdullah inaugurates Doha Village for Pakistan flood victims

LAHORE: Sheikh Ali Bin Abdullah Thani J. Al-Thani, Chairman Pak-Qatar Takaful Group has successfully completed the construction for 200 families who had lost their homes due to the floods that swept through Pakistan in 2010. The project includes 200 residential homes, a mosque, a primary school, a health unit, shops and clean drinking water and sanitation facilities. Sheikh Ali Bin Abdullah Thani J. Al-Thani, Chairman Pak-Qatar Family & General Takaful inaugurated the project on February 27, 2013.

The Sheikh Thani Bin Abdullah for Humanitarian Services (RAF) is one of many foundations established in Qatar concerned primarily with humanitarian work for relief and social development, both locally and internationally. The foundation is amongst a handful of charities that were focused on the repopulation process of the affected areas in Pakistan. The Foundation allocated a significant sum for the repopulation and establishment of the "Doha Village Project” in Sanjarpur village, Tehsil Sadiqabad in the district of Rahim Yar Khan.

Total area of the village is 11 Acres and total number of beneficiaries is around 1600-2000. The Project started in Oct, 2011 and ended in July 2012.

Sheikh Thani, Chairman Pak-Qatar Takafukl Group said: “As soon as the features of the disaster started to appear and began to unfold its destructive effects to the world that the Qatari civil society institutions rushed to rescue the victims and distressed people. So, a campaign was organized for collecting donations, and an amount of QR 40 million was collected in one day. While RAF was leading the campaigners for collecting donations, its urgent help was successively reaching the affected regions in Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Sindh, as field teams began distributing food, essential supplies and drinking water. This means that the breadwinners will go back to supporting their families, and this will lead to improving their economic and living conditions, and enabling children and students to pursue their studies amid special attention to their health.”

The flood disaster in Pakistan of 2010 is considered to be one of the most devastating floods to have occurred in the past 80 years. The flooding was mainly due to an unprecedented rainfall in the north western part of the country in July 2010. The flooding washed away and destroyed more than 800,000 homes and this led to more than two million displaced people in the country who lost all their possessions and livestock. The number of people affected by these floods is about 20 million. According to information gathered by the United Nations the floods have led to the deaths of 1600 people, and the organization warned against the exposure of about 3.5 million children in Pakistan to the risk of various diseases caused by polluted flood waters in the country. The flooding left six million displaced people and 14 million have fled their villages and lands.