Mohammadi Machar Colony:
Community Driven Development Project
Community Driven Development project:
The Community Driven Development Project is a pilot project designed to meet the needs of the residents of Mohammadi Colony in accordance with CFC’s mission. It addresses the Colony with a holistic approach in order to build a long standing model for sustainable development for those living in similar at-risk populations. The project aims to enter the community, empower pre-existing health and education facilities simultaneous to providing residents with awareness and guidance as to how to gain social, economic and political independence from their current situations. The Community Driven Development Project is designed to be a 10 year project, with the option to extend if need be. It is currently in its third year and has grown substantially since its inception. The entire Community Driven Development Project is currently divided into two main initiatives, with several specific projects under the broader umbrella of the initiative.
Mohammadi Machar Colony :
Mohammadi (Machar) Colony is located behind the railroad tracks on Maripur Road in Karachi. It is a densely populated 4 sq. km stretch of land, housing over 700,000 settlers. In 2000 CFC received project funding in the amount of 59,000-Pound Sterling from Charities Aid Foundation for a Healthcare and Health Education Project (HCEP) in Mohammadi Colony (the colony is commonly known as Machar Colony, derived from both the large population of machayr i.e. fishermen in the area as well as from the abundance of mosquitoes i.e. machar found in the area during nighttime). Due to legal/property issues with Karachi Port Trust (KPT), it remains one of the most underdeveloped areas of Karachi. The illegal occupation of the land has become an excuse for both government and private organizations to turn a blind eye on the devastating water, sanitation, literacy and basic human rights conditions prevailing in Mohammadi Colony.
Although almost all residents of the community are of the Muslim religion, they come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. The wide ethnic diversity of the community is attributed to the residents being displaced persons from Afghanistan, Burma and Bangladesh. CFC’s needs assessment estimated that over fifty percent of Mohammadi Colony’s residents were of Bangladeshi descent, with only second generation Bangali women learning to speak Urdu.
There is an 80% illiteracy rate in the community, with a majority of these numbers being women and girls. Less than ten percent of the community’s children attend school, as they are encouraged by their families to seek employment – usually within the shrimp peeling industry.
Healthcare Initiative:
Mother Child Health Clinic (MCH)
The MCH has been strategically located in the center of Mohammadi Colony. The clinic is fully staffed with two MBBS doctors (one male and one female) and a Lady health worker. The MCH services approximately 85 patients on a daily basis. The MCH constantly provides low-cost health care services, vaccines, treatment, screenings, referrals, access to primary, preventive health care and awareness of hygienic practices in the community. The medical staff at the MCH serves as the only qualified medical practitioners in this community.
Mobile Healthcare
Mobile Healthcare was introduced to the Healthcare in 2005. Mobile clinic are present in selected schools within Mohammadi Colony for six days a week. Mobile Healthcare was introduced to the Healthcare in 2005. The facilities mobile clinics in selected schools within Mohammadi Colony for six days a weeks. At this time, CFC is running Mobile Healthcare in six schools and four madrasa’s throughout the community. It provides approximately 1100 students with free medical services and health education on a monthly basis. Similar to the MCH, CFC’s community doctor maintains a personal medical history profile for all students that participate in the program. During the doctor’s visits he/she provides a variation of medical services: health education, treatment, medication, referrals, etcetera. The doctor is hence in a position to detect illnesses that would otherwise be ignored. The doctor/s not only provides free medication to students, but inform the student the reasons behind his/her medical condition. The information given to the student about healthcare is as vital to the program as the physical evaluation aspect of the program. Weekly visits ensure that the health conditions of the student body continues to improve and information provided by the doctor is reinforced.
Tuberculosis Intervention
In order to eradicate and treat tuberculosis, a preventable and curable disease, the School-to-School Tuberculosis Intervention Program (TIP) was initiated in December 2005, and facilitates students who test positive for Tuberculosis through the Mobile Healthcare program. CFC has established a reliable relationship with the Lyari General Hospital for this particular program.
CFC underwrites the expenditures of the Moneaux Test (MT), sputum, blood, and other tests needed for the final diagnosis of Tuberculosis. Following diagnosis, CFC transports the students to the hospital on a bi-weekly basis to receive government funded medication, as well as a visitation with a specialized doctor.
Additionally, the Daily Observational Therapy (DOTS) Program is a collaborative effort between CFC and the Ojha Institute of Chest Disease. The Ojha Institute provides treatment to patients suffering form tuberculosis. All residents of Mohammadi Colony that have attended and have been diagnosed with tuberculosis by the Institute hands over the patient’s medical records and required medication to CFC’s Community Doctor. Therefore the patient is not forced to visit and incur costs of transport to the Institute, but simultaneously has access to necessary treatment at the MCH. CFC’s MCH Project Staff records all visitations and makes house calls in cases where the patient is being inconsistent with the required dosage of medication. The program began in May 2005 and has provided services to over 15 patients every month.
Healthcare Camps
Following extensive research via water toxicology reports, needs’ assessments and interviews carried out with residents in Mohammadi Colony, CFC determined the community’s residents are highly prone to skin diseases due to the poor hygiene and sanitation conditions therefore to provide health education and consultations CFC Started healthcare camps in 2000 which continue to be repeated on a quarterly basis. Each camp provides free medical consultation/s, referrals for treatment, and medication. In the past, healthcare camps have been held in partnership with the Pakistan Medical Association, Civil Hospital, and the Welfare Association for Dermatological Patients (WADeP). The camps are designed to specifically target the needs of the colony residents. Hence, CFC offers a Skincare camp, a Pediatric camp, and a Gynecology camp. On average the camps facilitate 800 individuals in a six hour period.
Labor Room/Maternity Ward***
The objective of the maternity ward is to provide a safe and medically well-equipped environment for women in Mohammadi Colony both during pregnancy and at time of delivery.
Based on needs assessments conducted throughout the community and on the documented frequency of pregnant women at the MCH, CFC believes it would be in the best interest of the community to build a labor room with a small connected maternity ward within Mohammadi Colony. Many women in the Colony deliver at home alone or with the assistance of a mid-wife, very few women are able to afford the luxury of delivering in a hospital. Not only would a labor room, staffed with a female MBBS doctor and a Lady Health Worker, ensure safer and more hygienic conditions but will also ensure that the mother is medically well taken care of both before and after giving birth.
Ambulance Service***
Unfortunately many residents of the Colony are hesitant to go to a hospital because transport of getting there is either too expensive or difficult. The only place to hail a taxi, rickshaw, or a bus is from the main road outside of the Colony; hence, residents who are living deep inside the colony have to walk a considerable distance just to get to the nearest hospital. An ambulance service provides the residents of Mohammadi Colony with a fast and cost effective means of reaching a hospital in time of emergency. CFC is exploring collaboration with the Edhi Foundation in order to provide an ambulance service for the residents of Machar Colony. As the Colony is difficult to navigate if unfamiliar with, CFC has designed a basic map of the colony that can be distributed to Edhi ambulance drivers. Additionally, CFC is exploring the option of introducing Service Meeting Points in different parts of the Colony, where residents will only need to get themselves to the nearest Meeting Point and from there an ambulance will receive them
Economic Advancement Initiative
Project Kitab-Education.
Through CFC’s mobile healthcare program, CFC has developed a close relationship with several local schools in Mohammadi Colony. CFC’s project staff has observed that the provision of education is beset with difficulties. Problems such as unqualified teachers, lack of basic lighting, ventilation, and sanitation, as well as massive shortage of school supplies.
Based on these findings CFC is launching education projects that will capacity build within existing educational facilities which will eventually allow them to become self sufficient and effective. Project Kitab will initially be introduced in five private schools, with the aim of replicating the project in all 30 private schools in the Colony by 2010. The project will assist the selected schools in several different ways such as adding on infrastructure facilities or strengthening the existing ones by providing repairs, repainting, building toilet facilities also Provision of teaching materials on a needs basis. Moreover Syllabus review and development will be provided, which will follow government guidelines coupled with additional requirements determined by CFC. These will include the introduction of art, physical education, and extra curricular activities. CFC is also aiming for Teacher and administration training. Teachers will be required to fulfill provincial educational department requirements so that they are recognized as certified teachers of the Government of Sindh.
Public Health Initiative
CFC launched its Public Health Initiative in November 2006. The Public Health Initiative’s primary objective is to make a transition from service provision to psychological reformation for both members of the community and those that provide them services. Through the Public Health component CFC aims to raise the community’s health standards at a psycho-social level by achieving a balance between service provision and community empowerment. CFC is currently achieving these objectives via:
Community Awareness Meeting
Weekly Community Awareness Meetings are conducted throughout the community in order to provide health education and an open forum for the women and men of Mohammadi Colony to voice their concerns and ideas. Awareness meetings are held each week in a different community member’s home, and are attended by community members and CFC’s community doctor and community mobilizer. The meetings are segregated both due to cultural reasons and in order to give the women an unrestrained forum for discussion. The intent of the meetings is to provide health education to the community, to stimulate personal interactions between the community residents and CFC staff, as well as to discuss issues pertaining to the social and economic barriers that the residents face as a community. This forum will also be used as a starting point for the creation of Community Based Organizations (CBO’s).
Para-Medical Empowerment
Surveys conducted by CFC project staff of Para-Medical clinics in Mohammadi Colony have revealed deplorable hygiene conditions, inadequate medical equipment, incorrect and overall unethical medical practices. The majority of health practitioners servicing residents of the community are not qualified M.B.B.S. doctors. Despite an inadequate standard of service provision these individuals have established relationship and trust with community members. Hence, CFC is determined that empowerment and capacity building of existing local healthcare practitioners is vital for community-level empowerment. The Public project will begin with trainings on sexual health (sexual health, history taking, family planning, sexually transmitted infections (STI’s) –Diagnosis and Treatment HIV/AIDS) and safe motherhood (hygiene, nutrition, immunizations, post and pre-natal care and infant care) for those servicing Para-Medical clinics in the community. This will also be used as a platform to establish partnership with local health clinics. CFC has begun working with specialist training organizations to facilitate workshops to encourage practitioners to exercise high standards of service provision. Upon completion of these workshops the practitioners are awarded certificates which will serve as proof of their training with CFC. CFC will then provide needs based medical equipment, medical supplies, and medication to these clinics free of cost. Currently CFC is working in partnership with external organizations in order to provide trainings but will work towards acquiring our own staff of trainers for all future trainings.
Awareness Campaigns – Thalassaemia
Every year CFC aims to take on a new campaign that will spread awareness and eradicate incorrect notions regarding preventable and curable diseases. This year CFC has decided to tackle the rampant Thalassaemia problem in Pakistan. The long term objective for this campaign is to pass an ordinance requiring a blood test before marriage and to have a statement placed on the nikah nama that verified that both parties have had their blood tested and that no more than one person has Thalassaemia minor.
Currently 5% of Pakistani’s are Thalassaemia minor – around 8 million people. It is culturally common in Pakistan for families to intermarry within their family and/or ethnic group, thus increasing the chances of Thalassaemia. There is a 1 in 4 chance that Thalassaemia minor parents will produce a Thalassaemia major child. There is no cure for Thalassaemia major and frequent blood transfusions are necessary for survival. Treatment is expensive and currently due to a low number of blood donors the number of individuals who can receive treatment is very limited.
The Thalassaemia Campaign aims to create awareness amongst the populace about the magnitude of the disease and how much it affects the lives of Pakistani’s. Diseases like Thalassaemia are not currently curable but they are preventable. CFC aims to target all aspects of the Thalassaemia problem: needs assessments to determine level of knowledge about Thalassaemia, prevention via awareness raising amongst the populace and blood testing camps, facilitation of treatment via Blood Drives, and the ultimate change in policy regarding the nikha nama. Additionally, CFC is spread information about Thalassaemia via ads, billboards, newspapers and radio. CFC is also approaching local Karachi schools in order to conduct Blood Drives and create a blood donation culture amongst the youth.
CFC is currently collaborating with Kashif Iqbal Thalassaemia Care Center in order to test Mohammadi Colony students for Thalassaemia minor. CFC is also working with Fatimid Foundation, the leading Blood Bank and Thalassaemia care center, in order to collaborate in the production of a documentary/drama on Thalassaemia and on how it affects all socio-economic segments of society.
Environment & Sanitation Initiative***
“Garbage is Gold” Project
Sanitation in Machar Colony is an undisputed problem which affects the lives of every resident in the Colony. The main water source of Machar Colony lies under layers of solid waste. Health concerns related to solid waste include skin and eye infections, diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid, hepatitis, cholera, flea-born fever, and intestinal diseases. Rodents, mosquitoes, and other insects are attracted to garbage and can increase transmission of these diseases within the Colony. To create awareness in Mohammadi Colony about the necessity of good sanitation and the health benefits of living in a clean environment. CFC hold formal meetings regarding sanitation conditions in Machar Colony with Colony Councilmen.
A sanitation project in Machar Colony involves an awareness campaign which explains the connection between health and good sanitation, including a collaborative awareness play.
CFC is also collaborating with, an organization that has been running a Safai Bank which buys garbage from individuals CFC aims for a six-month initial clean-up drive through an income generation scheme. This would involve training a selected number of residents to collect and separate the different components of solid waste. The residents would be paid a certain amount for every pound of separated recyclable waste.
Gul Bahao has also adopted a scheme that recycles plastic bags into aluminum construction sheets. CFC will attempt to replicate this effort by setting up a camp within the Colony to train and employ workers to make these aluminum sheets, which can then be sold on the open market.
***New Initiative – yet to be implemented
