Making efforts for community development

Farhan Jumani

‘Better tomorrow’ is a beautiful, attractive and inspiring slogan to share their contribution. This has been raised by one of the community organizations of Karachi, which led me to reflect on the various projects of public services offered by numbers of NGOs in Karachi.

There are hundreds of NGOs working in different areas to ameliorate peoples’ life. It includes empowerment of women, poverty alleviation of rural areas, health and educational support to needy people, creating opportunities for unemployed, spreading knowledge and awareness of human rights, road safety and other social issues, research work and disseminating findings, keep watchful eye on parliament activities, care center’s for orphans as well as for senior citizens and many more.

 All these efforts of NGOs are remarkable and appreciable. Though all the institutions are making best efforts with their pace and capacities but, unfortunately are not getting the desired results. As an educationist and a member of one such community organization, I want to make sound suggestions which can be applied with making some measures in it to improve the quality of life and living of the citizens of Karachi.

This is a challenge and we have to strive for the solution, as we know without self-determination no nation can be change. Today everyone in Karachi from elite to poor is being affected by the rising day to day inflation.

The day-to-day increase in prices of necessary commodities is a big challenge for everyone. This is affecting negatively on other aspects of the life as well i.e. education and health facilities. If one goes to any chain store or local grocery shop in Karachi, one can see the difference in the rate of commodities which is the most important variable influencing the life of people and there is no check and control on this. Despite this enormous cost of living, the large population of Karachi is living in rented house they are the most influenced one. However, in writer’s opinion this situation cannot manage by solo entity. It requires the partnership approach between governmental and civil society. Most of the NGOs have to work together for proposed scheme in order to cater the biggest proportion of masses.

Community organizations can easily reach to their members and can implement these national schemes. It is a dire time to give relaxation to people by offering food schemes – a basic need of the people. In order to illustrate the point further under the scheme each and every household of Karachi under the umbrella of their community institutions in order to proper manage should get the Rs. 3,000/-food grocery every month. Identification criteria of household can be designed. Through, this small portion of relaxation. One household can easily save against the monthly debt burden or mental pressure. They can use the same amount for their child education, for their health care, life insurance for the protection or any other saving schemes perhaps which can help them in their old age in order to improve the quality of life of self and the loved ones.

If we look at this scheme in broaden perspective. There are many advantages of this scheme. The billions of rupees which individual and institutions are donating will channelized and utilize effectively. The scheme will develop better livelihood with keeping the self-dignity of households and the true essence of the social services would be gain.

Keeping the economic condition in view, Institutions should reflect on proposed scheme. They can mold and develop similar scheme with different criteria and come up with the idea which can implement on society in order to provide support and improve the quality of life of the people. Surely these efforts will develop the “Better tomorrow”.

The writer is an educationist who has written extensively on Social Issues. farhanjumani@gmail.com