Human Development Foundation

HDF Heals a Village Scarred by Earthquake

By YesPakistan.com Staff Writer

Volunteers form the US and local residents worked together to build houses.

As the winter advances on northern Pakistan, HDF has been on the ground, working to save lives. In addition to all the regular activities HDF has done, these extraordinary times also call for some new partnerships to help even more people.

To that end, HDF has teamed up with another NGO, The Pakistan Association of Greater Seattle, and a private U.S. company, Alaska Structures, to build housing and provide other relief services for earthquake survivors in the Bugna villages complex.

With PAGS working to bring the groups together, Alaska Structures donating the structures and HDF providing the logistical know-how, what normally would have seemed an impossibility came to pass: Over 260 tons of housing material was flown into Pakistan from the United States, unloaded and trucked from Islamabad to the HDF Field Camp 6,000 feet up on a mountain, and made ready to supply to the earthquake victims.

The new hospital/clinc and its four wards are ready for patients.

“This is a true example of how working together allows everyone to accomplish much more than they could independently,” said HDF Executive Director Bill Breedlove, who was at the field camp in Bugna. “Without cooperating, none of us on our own could get this done.”

HDF’s proven expertise working with the rural population paid immediate dividends. Because many NGOs had set up “tent cities”—vast groupings of hundreds or thousands of tents providing housing to displaced people—the first thought was to use the structures to create one of those camps.

However, because of HDF’s experience, we knew that these people would not want to come down from the mountains and leave their home sites unattended. They would prefer to stay on their land and take their chances rather than come to a central location and possibly lose their homestead. Because HDF was able to advise the other organizations of this, the decision was made to erect the structures right next to people’s homes—thus allowing them to work on rebuilding while living next to where their home will be reconstructed!

Students remove their shoes before entering the new classroom to study.

With a group including the 25 volunteers from the United States working with Alaska Structures, HDF began delivering the housing parts to peoples’ home sites all up and down the mountain. As is common with HDF projects, community support was vital. Community leaders helped select sites, and neighbors volunteered to hand carry the materials to home sites that we inaccessible via road! Everyone was really pitching in!

Perhaps most importantly, from the HDF model standpoint, we were doing more than just providing housing to people. The volunteers worked side-by-side with local residents, training them in how to erect these structures. Soon, the local folks were training their neighbors, so later, when additional housing units arrive, the people from the village will be able to build the houses on their own.

A new home for the winter.

“This is unbelievable to see,” said Breedlove. “Just a few days ago there was just rubble, and now people have safe, long-lasting structures that are capable of carrying them through until they can rebuild.”

In addition to the 115 houses constructed, HDF and its partners also build a new field hospital/clinic with four separate wards, and put up structures to replace schools which had been destroyed.

“I came by and saw the children were doing their studies outside, and I asked what they did when it rained,” said Breedlove, “they said, ‘Then we have no school.’ We couldn’t have that, especially with the winter coming on, so we had to put up some structures that can at least allow the students to work on their studies indoors.”

What’s next? For the families of Bugna, at least there will be a warm place to live, a clinic to meet medical needs, and a place for the children to go to school—all while rebuilding takes place. For HDF and our partnering organizations, we will continue to work tirelessly to help make a difference to even more people who have suffered in this great tragedy.

Date/Time Last Modified: 12/8/2005 12:01:58 PM

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