Seminar Report
Swair Women Organization with the help of Oxfam organized a seminar at Lahore Press club on 27th July. 140 people attended the seminar; the majority of them were the affected persons of 1992 flood, caused by the Ravi River in Shahdarah. The seminar lasted for three hours and 8 speakers address the seminar. No government official attended the seminar despite the assurances from the relevant authorities. Even the date of the seminar was changed on the request of district flood relief officer for his participation.
Objective of the Seminar
Rukhsana Manzoor president SWO describe the objectives of the seminar. She also gave brief introduction of OXFAM and its activities. She introduces the discussion. She said that main objective of this seminar is to share the experiences and information with the flood affected communities and to discuss the ways to minimize the losses in case of a flood. She also emphasized the need to develop the liaison between relief agencies and local affected communities to organize better relief work.
The Discussion
The speakers highlighted the different points during their speeches. They describe the ordeal faced by the people in the last floods in 1992. The community leaders from Shahdarah describe their experiences of floods. They said that no warning was issued by the government before releasing the flood waters to their areas. The announcements were made from the Mosques to vacate the area without providing any assistance or help to the people.
Nazli Javed ex councilor and community leader from Shahdarah gave detailed
Account of sufferings faced by the affected people. She gave examples that many young girls were abducted during the relief operations by the gangsters and police officials and no girl was recovered so far. She also said that many people remained hungry for days, as no food was provided to them by government relief agencies.
Farah Naz community leader and social activist from shahdarah also explain the same experiences and situation. She told the audience that her family remained struck at the rooftop of their house for many days with out any relief. She also said that many people died from snack biting because no vaccine was available in the area.
Sajida Mir president PPP women wing Lahore criticized the government departments for their criminal negligence during any emergency situation. She said that civic agencies never prepared themselves for floods or any other natural disaster. She said that women and children are the severely affected sections of the most vulnerable communities.
Fazl-e-Wahid secretary general Railway workers union , Altaf Baluch president Muthida Labor Federation Punjab, Khalid Bhatti Telecommunication workers union, Moona Malik SWO also spoke in the seminar.
The audience also participated in the discussion and describes their experiences. They also gave suggestions to safe the life and properties.
Suggestions
1- Effective warning system should be established to inform the possible affected communities about a possible flood.
2- Civil Defense department should be organized on modern basis that can play effective role in the case of flood.
3- The relief committees should be formed to carry out the relief work. These committees should be consisting of local government officials, community leaders, social activists and local NGOS.
4- Government should share the flood fighting plan with the public and provide all the information to the possible flood affected people.
5- Government should launch awareness campaign with the help of civil society organizations to provide the basic information about the protected measures should be taken during the flood.
Mobilization
The invitations cards, banners, invitation letters and faxes were used to mobilization of this seminar. The initial target was 200 participants, but this target was not achieved mainly because of local bodies election. Many people could not be able to attend because it was the last day of submitting nomination papers. The main focus was Shahdarah and Badami Bagh areas. Transport was provided to all the participants. Few banners were also placed at the prominent public places in Shahdarah and Badami Bagh.
Media Coverage
All the main news papers and TV channels covered this seminar. AAJ TV, ARY One World, Apna channel gave coverage. The DAWN, THE NATION, THE NEWS, THE POST, Daily Pakistan, Daily Express, Daily Jinnah also covered this seminar. This coverage conveys our message to many people in Lahore and elsewhere.
Conclusions
We have been able to achieve our main objectives through this activity.
1- We have been able to mobilize local communities.
2- We have been successful to build a close coordination with most vulnerable communities.
3- We have been able to provide basic information about health and diseases through the Oxfam leaflet, which were distributed in different areas.
4- We successfully highlighted the problems affected communities through media.
5- We have established 3 committees in 3 different areas in the local communities to carry out the relief work in these areas.
6- We have developed a liaison with different community organizations in Shahdara.
7- We have not been able to develop close coordination and liaison with government officials and district relief office, despite making many efforts.
We are very thankful to Oxfam Pakistan for their support in this activity. YOUR help provides us the basic resources to achieve these objectives. We are also very thankful for the guidance and help; we received during this activity from Oxfam.
Looking forward for future cooperation.
Yours Truly,
Rukhsana Manzoor
President SWO
18-08-2005 Lahore