RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: The pilot project, initiated by Human Appeal International (HAI), to grow vegetables at drought-ravaged Tharparkar got amazing success as it enables 200 families to attain self-sufficiency in food and say adieu to living permanently on outside support and charity.

Different kinds of fully bloomed vegetables blanket barren and sandy tracts of land at Islamkot Tehsil of the district Thar to the delight of growers as well as passersby. The success of the project also proves the skeptics wrong who always question the sagacity of any such overture in the desert area.

UK based organisation HAI had launched the project almost a year ago with an aim at facilitating local people making a smooth transition from living on outside support and charity to self-reliance by focusing on agriculture.

As a pre-requisite to the initiative, solar powered water pumps were installed at selected villages of Islamkot Tehsil of the area. Benefitting over 20,000 people, the pumps relieved the people from pulling out water from bottomless wells through human carts. They also changed the life style of them with more focus on health and hygiene practices.

To make the best use of extra water availed from the pumps; Human Appeal initiated a kitchen gardening project in the area. After a careful soil testing and field assessment, 200 farmers, including women, were selected for a four months long training in the area. The focus of training remained seed growing, pest management and seed banking.

“Through the project, we wanted to send a loud and clear message to one and all that living on charity and outside support was no solution to the problems faced by the people of Tharparkar. They have to be made self sufficient in food and agriculture holds the key to it,” underlined Nisar Ahmad, Country Director Human Appeal International.

He also disclosed that his organisation had decided to replicate it in other parts of the area to help people attain self-reliance to fight out poverty and drought like conditions in the area.

HAI has been working in different sectors at Tharparkar and is committed to promote a culture of self-reliance in the area. Apart from humanitarian support and supply of clean drinking water, it has supported a large number of expectant and lactating mothers to overcome undernourishment through the provision of food supplements and special diet.

It also plans to introduce certain species of plants which are rich in nutrition both for human beings and livestock which is the backbone of local economy, he informed.