Badin Parish rebuilding themselves

Villager from Tajeli. Photo: Fr Pat Visanti

Since the damaging floods last monsoon season, the villages affected here in Badin parish have recovered remarkably well. My last visit to Tajeli village, one of the badly flooded villages in our parish, about a week ago was very satisfactory to see that the villages have moved on and are rebuilding themselves. Although lots of rehabilitation work is pending, the villagers are back working in the fields, preparing it for the planting of the next crop. A lot of them are getting work with the start of the rice harvesting season. It was very fortunate that a lot of the rice fields close by survived the flooding, so many of our people are able to get some income for themselves.

Almost all of the villages that were affected in the parish are back to their regular routine except a very few that still live in the makeshift grass houses on the roadside. This brings to light the need for proper housing for many of our people in the parish. Housing is an issue because many of our people live on land owned by Landlords. Thus, they cannot build concrete or permanent houses. Unfortunately, it’s a challenge that is beyond our control unless something is done like purchasing land or relocating families to Church owned land and rebuilding there.

Members of Divine Hope. Photo: Fr Pat Visanti

In Badin, we are very fortunate to have received overwhelming support from Columbans supporters and Pakistanis here and abroad. The Dioses and Caritas were among the first responders. St Joseph Convent School in Karachi, run by the Daughters of the Cross Sisters, have donated food rations, clothes and shoes. Divine Hope, a Charity organization run by Daniel Bashir and a group of youths from Karachi, distributed 80 packages of food ration. They also conducted some medical and Hygiene awareness during the distribution as there were medical professionals that were part of their group.

Rev Deacon Stephen Khokhar and his Pakistani parishioners from England also reached out to us here. This was made possible through our school principal Emmanual Lal and the generosity of friends, donors and benefactors. It has enabled us to reach out to as many affected families as we can. So far, we have distributed 490 packages to 280 families, and we have planned another distribution, and we hope to distribute it to 60 families. With that, we thank our generous benefactors for continuing to support us, and helping us in our efforts to reach out to our affected people as much as possible.

Columban Fr Pat Visanti lives and works in Pakistan.