Bringing Hope and Love to Crisis Hit Locations - Crisis Relief Society (Singapore)

Pakistan Relief Project

Reports from the field:

	School Rebuilding Project in Mongbajiri
	6th May 2006
	Miracles in Kashmir
	25th Dec 2005
	A Different Perspective of Life in Kashmir
	Report by Alwin Tien
	6th Dec 2005
	29th Nov 2005
	Updates from Bagh Team 3
	17th Nov 2005
	The Quake Didn’t Kill Him-- But Winter Might
	14th Nov 2005
	9th Nov 2005
	Recce Team Report from Pakistan
	Plight of the South Asia Quake Victims

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Home > Our Projects > Pakistan Earthquake Relief Project

A Different Perspective of Life in Kashmir – 25th December 2005

By Ng Tze Yong, Pakistan Team 3

In Kashmir, generosity operates on a different level, even after an earthquake. At every house we stopped at during our relief trip in November, we were insistently told to sit down and offered trays of butter biscuits and chai carefully sweetened with buffalo milk.

The families were dirt-poor, but their sons scrambled off into the forest to gather armfuls of tangerines and walnuts for us. At many houses, the fathers insisted we stay the night.

Perhaps this was the biggest thing that struck us as we played our role as a humanitarian group. Even around us, our local partners were people like Shahid and Samson. Shahid came from a slum in Islamabad. A father of two toddlers, he left his family the day after the earthquake and has been in Kashmir since then. Samson sewed leather jacket in Karachi and left his job for two weeks to go to Kashmir. Shahid and Samson were members of our local partner Calvary Charismatic Church (CCC), the Pakistani daughter church of the Victory Family Centre in Singapore.

We met them in mid-November 2005, when the six of us arrived as the third CRS team in Mong Bajri valley 20km from Bagh in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. With local Kashmiris leading us, we trekked to the villages around the valley. These were alpine villages of mud and concrete houses perched by terraced wheat fields. The once picturesque scene is now marred by destruction. Houses are now piles of logs and stone. Their residents peek out from under thin canvas tents. A woman was crying for her two buffalos lost in the earthquake. On a hilltop, schoolgirls decked in red headscarves and baby blue robes restarted school squatting in rows on the dirt ground. Behind them, their school sits as a pile of rubble. In Class Four, where 17 out of 19 girls died, the two surviving girls squatted by themselves at the back.

Going from house to house, we surveyed each family’s needs and issued vouchers for blankets, tents and zinc sheets accordingly. Distribution of relief supplies was done at base camp. This approach was speedy and allowed us to visit 40 villages in total. It also prevented families from hogging supplies. At the same time, we administered first aid, often revisiting them a few days later to change dressings and give more medicine. By the end of our trip, in partnership with CCC and a Korean partner church, we had given out the following:
• 280 tents
• 1100 blankets
• 1000 mattresses
• 200 food packages*
• 1000 pieces of iron sheets (for roofing purpose as the tents will not hold up the snow in winter)

*Food packages consist of 20 kg of flour, 5 kg of rice, 5 liter of cooking oil, 5 kg of sugar, 450 gram of tea, 4 kg of lentils, 1 kg of milk powder, match box as well as soap bar.

In the coming weeks, another 1400 pieces of iron sheets, 1500 blankets, 300 pieces of tarpaulins (water proof sheets for tents covering) and more food and tents will be distributed.

Even as Mong Bajri begins to receive the first snowfall of a three-month long Himalayan winter, CRS is planning more relief trips, as long as there are volunteers and doctors willing to go.

We are also planning for the Rehabilitation Phase after winter ends in March next year. In close consultation with our partners, we are considering the following:
• Replacing animal livestock (goats and cows).
• Back to school program (school bag, books, stationary).
• Providing big tents for schools to conduct lessons.
• Provide materials for the rebuilding of houses.
• Kitchen ware and hygiene pack.