Story of a poor woman of Zhob
By YesPakistan.com Staff Writer
Zhob is one of the most difficult
regions where HDF is working, because
the community is quite conservative,
illiterate and backward. It was really
difficult for HDF to start its program
interventions in this remote area.
In the beginning the acceptance of
the program was quite low however
with the continuous efforts of the
committed staff the trend started
to change.
Although it was also challenging
for HDF to involve the women folk
of the area in its program activities,
but with continuous efforts HDF succeeded
to organize about 364 women in 25
Development Organizations so far.
With the grace of Allah now there
are several success stories in Zhob
Region. The story of a woman of Village
Daragai is one of them.
Village Deragai is situated in the
North at a distance of about 7 Km
from Zhob city, where the main source
of income is Agriculture and Livestock.
The Society is totally man dominated
and female have no say in decision
making and income generating activities.
Initially male community members of
the area were motivated to form male
DOs. The male DOs were subsequently
taken into confidence and male members
were motivated to allow their females
to participate in the HDF- program
activities. Through continuous efforts
a female DO “Pani” was
eventually formed in the village.
Bibi Zulaikha was one of the poor
women in the village Deragai. She
became an active member of DO. Her
husband is a farmer having a small
piece of land. His meager income was
not sufficient to meet the basic needs
of a large sized family.
To support her husband, Bibi Zulaikha
was running a small home based grocery
shop but its inadequate income was
also unable to meet their basic needs.
After
getting membership of DO, Zulaikha
planned to strengthen her business
and prepared an expansion plan for
her shop. She took a loan of Rs. 5,000/-
from HDF for a time period of one
year. “Business Management Skills
Training” imparted by HDF, proved
to be a great help for her in the
management of her shop. It was really
surprising that her daily sales rose
to Rs. 500. Within a record period
of 3 months she repaid all of the
credit amount to HDF.
She again applied for a loan of Rs.
10,000/- in order to further expand
her business. Keeping in view her
determination, timely recovery and
commitment towards self-sufficiency,
HDF approved her resolution and provided
the requested amount of credit for
second time. Now the daily sales of
her shop have risen up to Rs.700.
Her shop is now considered as one
of the big shops in the village. Her
monthly income has increased up to
Rs. 4,000.
She admitted her children in HDF
Child Friendly Community School. Zulaikha
and her husband are planning to further
strengthen their shop because they
now have a better source of income.
Bibi Zulaikha is very thankful to
HDF for its intervention and for its
support to the poor.
