WWOP implemented a project funded by UNOCHA “Initiatives for Child Protection in 7 flood affected Union Councils of 3 Districts: District Layya (Punjab), Districts Tank and Nowshera (KP)” Location of the project in District Layya were Union Council Sultan Kot and UC Pahar Pur, District Nowshera, Union Council Kabul River,UC Badrashi and UC Nowshera Kallan and in District Tank: UC Jatatter and UC Ama Khel
A project funded by FAO and ERRA Different assessment in the area has revealed that earth quake has had major affect on the lives of people and their means to secure the basic necessities of life. Community Livelihood Rehabilitation project was designed for the earthquake affected areas by ERRA with the funding of FAO. This project is initiated with objective
During 2009, Community Physical Infrastructure schemes served the multi-purpose objectives in the target areas like, Physical asset building and increasing the farm productivity. A total of 31 CPI programs were completed with the contribution of 20% from community and 80% from PPAF, All these projects were completed in 35 villages of 8 UCs in 2 Tehsil of Rawlakot and Dheerkot in district Poonch and District Bagh.
Community Physical Infrastructure project was executed with the partnership of WWOP and Azad Jammu Kashmir Community Development Program (AJK-CDP). This project was also in connection of CPI program. WWOP and AJK-CDP join hands for physical infrastructure development in 2 Tehsils of Rawlakot and Dheerkot. Under the collaboration 5 link roads were constructed during 2009. The schemes completed under this project included: 3 roads constructed in Dheerkot and 2 in Rawalakot. In these projects community contributed 10% of the total cost of the schemes.
The overall objective of WAQIHP (Water Quality Improvement and Hygiene Promotion) project is to enhance sustainability of water supply systems; adopt best practices for attainment of water quality and hygiene promotion in targeted union councils of district Muzaffarabad ad Hattian.
The project strategy emphasized around strengthening of existing local community organizations/committees (WMCs) to capacitate their managerial skills in order to manage the water supply schemes with special focus on operations and maintenance (O&M). WWOP and Children First streamlined their activities adapted micro to macro level planning strategy. Furthermore, the strategy based on expanded scope of work with water quality management and improvement, disseminated knowledge and information, skills and attitude of communities regarding basic health hygiene practices in daily life.
Throughout the project period, Department of Local Government and Rural Development (LG&RD), Department of Health and all concerned lined agencies were involved in developing a result oriented collaboration to obtain project objectives.
With the financial support of ERRA, WWOP has launched a project of Promotion of Rain Water Harvesting in 4 union councils of District Poonch and Sudhnoti.
These UCs are Pachiot, Jandali and Khalidaraman in Poonch and UC Chowkian in Sudhnoti. Under this project baseline survey of all 4 union council was carried out. 3 debates competitions at school level were conducted in each union council and a water conservation walk at every village was organized. These walks and debates competitions were to increase awareness regarding promotion of rain water harvesting,
Roof top rain water harvesting system was installed in 7,240 houses.
After the earthquake, most of the people were disable to earn their living. WWOP launched a project to rehabilitate persons with disabilities, funded by Handicap International in UC Gojira Tehsil Muzaffarabad in March 2009. The project is basically aimed to create the opportunities to generate their income through skill enhancement.
The prime focus is to ensure that the quality of life of the people with disabilities in the earthquake affected areas and communities to improve in terms of disability awareness, social, economic and cultural inclusion. The major objective of the overall activates is to create employment opportunities by providing trainings to the unemployed.
The project is successfully completed in October 2009 with 150 disable beneficiaries, provided them awareness of their basic rights, skills trainings and seed money to empower them, into socially and economically.
Soon after earthquake, “People in Need (Czech Republic)” with financial support of the German Agro Action (GAA) started a project for psychological problems in the region of Bagh District.
A trauma centre was built at District Headquarter Bagh, with the name of Noor Bagh Psychosocial Centre. From 2006 onwards, hundreds of people are being provided with psychological consultation and treatment facilities in 3 Tehsiles of Bagh district.Psychosocial support is required in every tough situation; considering the importance of this service on long term basis, it was planned that the psychosocial program will be continued until 2012. But by the end of 2008, “People in Need (Czech Republic) closed its mission from Pakistan and handed it over to Women Welfare Organization Poonch (WWOP), considering the capacity, experience and social and development services of WWOP, in the region of AJK. The GAA provided funds for continuing the program for the year of 6 months. Three major interventions in the program are providing psychological treatment and counselling services to mentally disturbed people, educating general community members about mental and emotional health, and capacity building of professionals working with children through training sessions.
WWOP undertook the task of Reconstruction with the funds provided by Pakistan Povert Alleviation Fund (PPAF). WWOP was assigned to construct 500 houses in the Union Council of Bangoin of Settlement Bangoin, Nakkar and Poonch. Initially WWOP conducted a survey but prior to survey, the Field Engineers and Social Organizers of WWOP participated in the training about procedures and methodology of damage assessment organized by PPAF, with the technical cooperation of UN-Habitat.
WWOP formed 18 Cos representing the 500 disaster affected households. One person from each household was selected as CO member. One of the main objectives of these COs was the conflict resolution among the members of the affected communities. In addition to that the CO members also played a role in the joint purchasing and collection of construction materials, to make the construction works more transparent.
During year 2008, WWOP implemented seven months duration project with an aim to overcome livelihood crisis created or aggravated by the October 2005 earthquake and to lessen dependence on relief goods and financial support. The ILO-CDA project “Women Employment Concerns and Working Conditions (WEC-PK)” was seeking to provide “decent” employment to the targeted women. This program was based on continuation of pre disaster policies of enhancing the quantity and quality of women’s employment in Pakistan.
A project entitled “Support to Women and Children (SWC)” funded by World Bank was assigned to WWOP to execute Trainings and Develop Demo Farms under the umbrella of CISP. The objective of CISP project component given to WWOP was to capacitate the low income and un-served communities in the rural areas of AJK through training and income generating activities. This program capacitated enough the targeted people and made them able to work independently to earn for their families.
Considering the health and sanitation needs of the area, Women Welfare Organization Poonch (WWOP) developed a project on School Led Total Sanitation in the mid of 2008 and executed with partnership of UNICEF in the Union Council Chammyati with the population of 25125 in Tehsile Dheerkot of District Bagh. The project duration was 6 months and basic theme of the project was to develop an Open Defecation Free Community. After the completion of the project, the targeted villages were declared as the “Open Defecation Free Zone” by the Local Government and Rural Development, by awarding Certificates to the people and by placing Sign Boards on the targeted sights.
Considering the needs and disaster from earthquake, WWOP took initiatives to fulfil the Heath needs of the deprived communities. In these initiatives Mother and Child Care Centre was a major project in Kayat Kallan. With the financial contribution of the OXFAM-Novib, WWOP laid the foundation of MCCC in the area. For the establishment of this centre, local community of Kayat Kalan offered a house free of charge. This Health Centre is contributing in the improvement of health conditions in the area and providing Health services to the targeted community members.
“Four peace of mind” is a UK based charity , which facilitated earthquake affected communities in different ways with the collaboration of different organizations, including WWOP. Under this program during 2008, the organization constructed 23 houses especially for the widows, besides providing 16 scholarships to orphans students. Overall, in 2008, in total 21 houses have been constructed and 26 scholarships have been awarded. In addition to that a free medical centre is also being run under this program to provide free medical aid to the affected people.
After devastating earthquake in 2005, the donor activity increased in AJK to support affected populations first in rescue, relief and then rehabilitation phase. Partnership with For Peace of Mind, a UK based charity organization is working to support the earthquake affectees. In collaboration with For Peace of Mind, WWOP built 13 houses for widows in 2007 and each unit construction cost was about Rs. 250,000. Along with this that the UK based charity organization provided scholarships to orphans student for one year.
In 2007, WWOP went into partnership with UNICEF establishing School Management Committees (SMCs). Providing classroom materials and taking up a holistic teacher training program. A number of 104 primary teachers were trained in child centred teaching approach, and 136 members of school management committees attended the orientation workshops, which did not only inculcate ownership of the schools among the communities but it helped enhancing enrolment to 946 boys and 686 girls in the targeted schools in 2007.
During the earth quake WWOP initiated rehabilitation work in housing and rehabilitating the community physical infrastructure with the financial assistance of PPAF. In housing sector total amount of PAK Rs.58 million was disbursed to 468 families as compensation to reconstruct their houses. In addition, the basic infrastructure of the affected area which includes 33 link roads and 13 drinking water supply schemes have been rehabilitated in 46 villages with the total cost of PAK Rs. 16.55 million and benefited 2,040 household.
WWOP extends small loans under its microfinance programme to the poor and marginalized segments of society with special focus on women for their economic uplift. The microfinance services are provided to the people who are living in abject poverty and do not qualify for loans from the banks. This programme proved to be a great success because of its easy access to loans, simple procedures and low interest rates as compared to other lending institutions. This intervention supported local people transforming into small business entrepreneurs. The other component of the microfinance programme is to establish a culture of saving in the communities, build household asset based coupled with building their capacities through vocational training programme. As a result of WWOP’s facilitation and PPAF’s support in microfinance, small entrepreneurs have greater returns after covering all the costs than any lending institutions. It can be termed as a great success of WWOP which was only possible with inexhaustible efforts micro credit teams, A sum of Rs. 2,500,00 has been disbursed to clients of the area in 2007.
8 Oct, 2005 earthquake disaster badly devastates our working area not only death of thousand has occurred but it also damaged 98% of their houses. WWOP play an active role to help these suffered community and continuously working in relief operation to survive victims of earthquake disaster and planned a comprehensive strategy to tackle the victims and rehabilitate them in effective way. The organization Unitarian Universalism Service Committee working for protecting human rights worldwide for the last 65 years has contributed Rs. 300,000 for warm clothes for the earth quake affectees after October 2005 earthquake. This amount was disbursed by WWOP.
The project 'Enhancing Women's Access to Justice in AJK, supported by the Small Grants Ambassador Fund Project (USAID-SGAFP) was aimed to improve access to justice for women's survivors of violence. This 10-month duration project strengthened capacities of local bar association with knowledge building and infrastructure development. It also helped in promoting a women friendly environment at the courts, and increased reference data about pro-women laws and understanding of rights. Under this legal Information Centres were established at Family Court these, LiCs functioned as a bridge between women in need of legal assistance and the law practitioners that are providing prolong services.
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