The remote areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa hit by last year's devastating floods are still awaiting help for healthcare because government is overlooking social sector despite receiving substantial amount of foreign assistance for the flood-affected persons.
A visit to Swat and Lower Dir organised by a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Save the Children, revealed that like most other remote areas, the far-flung areas of Swat and Lower Dir are still deprived of the basic health and education facilities.
The flood-affected areas were also affected by the menace of terrorism. Despite tall claims of the government that it is expanding the social safety net as per one of the basic objectives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under Stand-By Arrangement Programme (SBA), the poverty-stricken people of Swat and Lower Dir do not have access to quality education and health.
The NGO has been working in Pakistan since 1979 and running different programmes of primary healthcare, basic education and awareness for war and flood-affected ones of Swat and Lower Dir. The organisation has established eight psychosocial learning centers in different areas of Lower Dir and Swat wherein children of different age groups are given training to protect themselves from abuse and they were also provided different recreational facilities at the centers.
Lower Dir is rated at number 89 among all the districts of the country in terms of literacy rate and such centers are inculcating awareness among children of the district on their rights, personal hygiene, and providing facilities. Riaz Muhammad, co-ordinator of the centers informed this scribe that children were given awareness of corporal punishment due to torture at the hands of teachers, some children refused to go to schools.
He added the community mobilisers of Save the Children go to schools and hold sessions with the teachers to stop physical punishments. The community mobilisers also go to homes and persuade the parents to deal with their children with care and love The organisation has also established eight 'psychosocial learning centers' for children under 18 in different Tehsils of Swat and Lower Dir.
The media persons were informed that under the project, ECHO III, 4 Union Councils (UCs) of Lower Dir out of 48 UCs had benefited for 11 months till July 2011. The informal education is being given to the children to polish their inner skills. The organisers told that the main purpose behind the establishment of these psychosocial learning centers was that the children has undergone two worst disasters in their lives including floods in 2010 and present spate of terrorism by Taliban in these areas. The issues faced by the disaster-hit area included damage to health infrastructure, insufficient availability of essential medicines, inadequate availability of essential health staff, lack of access to water and sanitation services.
There are psychosocial learning centers in each UC where the children are being provided the full opportunity to develop their personal skills through extra-curricular activities like playing games, painting and sketching. These PLCs are active since September 2010. Muhammad Riaz, a PLC Co-ordinator of Lower Dir said that during establishing the PLCs, the inhabitants of Lower Dir and Swat refused to send their children to the learning centers. "The people said that it might be a conspiracy of Taliban to gather their children under one roof and then blowing them up through a blast", Riaz maintained.
Every PLC has a trained female and a male teacher. "Now the people are satisfied as they can observe the positive change in their children live", Riaz said. The organisation has also provided basic health facilities in the government-owned hospitals of these areas. "We believe in working side by side with the government as we have provided medicines in most of the civil hospitals of Swat and Lower Dir."
For example, in Barikot Civil Hospital "Save the Children" has arranged a male doctor (medical specialist) and a Lady Health Visitor (LHV)", one of the organisers of the project told the media. There are two civil dispensaries, 2 civil hospitals and 2 rural health centers in Swat whereas while there are 4 hospitals in total in Lower Dir. Mehreen, the LHV in Barikot said: "We are providing free hygiene and delivery kits to the pregnant women along with the free medicines which these poor people cannot afford otherwise."