Daily Times

The world has come to know Swat through the extraordinary Malala and how she stood up heroically for girls’ education. It is also well worth taking the time to learn of Swat’s other extraordinary female heroes.

I had the great fortune this summer of spending the Eid holidays with my wife Zeenat’s family up in the majestic hills of Swat. It was on this visit that I had the opportunity to see first-hand the work that Zeenat’s younger sister Zebu Jilani, the granddaughter of the Wali of Swat, and her husband, Arshad, along with my American-born niece and nephew, Zahra and Ahmil, are doing through the Swat Relief Initiative (SRI) to support the women and children of the district.

Zebuco-founded SRI with Arshad in 2009, something Zeenat and I fully supportedin response to an ongoing series of disasters including the 2008 Taliban takeover of Swat, the 2009 Battles of Swat and the flooding in 2010. Zebu is now carrying forward her grandfather’s great legacy, as under the Wali, Swat had been known for its advanced education system and development initiatives.

Zebu, who has a background in dietetics, preventive medicine, acupressure, and traditional Chinese medicine, said she was driven to launch the organisation in response to witnessing the plight of Swat’s women and children. “My hope is that every person in this world starts feeling for every child, as they feel for their own children; and treasure every woman, as they would their own sister. Only then will we all be able to join hands and bring meaningful change in this world.”

SRI is now working in five areas: social mobilisation, education, healthcare, women’s economic empowerment, and sustainable environmental practices. As Zahra, who recently quit her job in the US to teach English in Swat with SRI, shared, “The reason why SRI works in all these sectors is because they are interrelated and no one sector alone can bring true prosperity without the others.” The programs primary serves 30,000 people and nine villages.

SRI welcomes 7,000 children and adults to its education programs. They have established SRI Model School for Girls, which have presented girls and young women with educational and career opportunities that were once extremely limited, reactivated two ghost schools, opened four schools in remote areas, adopted a government high school, launched four special schools targeting such areas as combating child labour and adult literacy, established scholarship programs for girls, and inaugurated vocational centres.

Zebu also launched a new program called 20/20 Vision, which aims to put 20,000 children in School by 2020.

SRI’s healthcare programs include vaccination provisions, health and nutrition seminars, pregnancy and lactation monitoring for new mothers, at-risk referrals to doctors and hospitals, and growth monitoring for young children to ensure that no child has to suffer malnutrition. Zebu also created a health and nutrition seminar for women and children to teach them how to improve their own health outcomes.

“Because of the diligence and hard work of SRI’s community health workers, our recent survey shows that SRI has reduced infant mortality by 50 percent and has almost eliminated maternal mortality in its program area,” Zebu explained. “Our partner, the Human Development Foundation, after seeing the success of our healthcare program in Swat, decided to implement SRI’s health seminars and community nutrition programs throughout their program areas in Pakistan.” The Human Development Foundation works to combat extreme poverty throughout Pakistan.

SRI is unique in that its volunteers travel door-to-door to seek out the folks who need aid the most, rather than following the standard procedure of providing aid to those who are able to go out of their way to seek it

As far as women’s economic empowerment is concerned, SRI has established vocational training centres for women which teach such skills as needlework, dressmaking, embroidery, and computer literacy. In addition, SRI has constructed water filtration plants, hand pumps, three comprehensive water supply schemes and also planted over 10,000 trees to create a sustainable environment.

In operating these programs, SRI is unique in that its volunteers travel door-to-door to seek out the folks who need aid the most, rather than following the standard procedure of providing aid to those who are able to go out of their way to seek it. Additionally, while the founders are based in the US, they spend three months each year in Swat to personally oversee SRI’s extensive programming, ensuring that all levels of the organisation remain close with those whom SRI supports.

As to why they left their high-paying jobs in the US to volunteer full-time with SRI, Zahra and Ahmil wrote, “Having been raised in America, we have often been deeply troubled by the stark gender inequality we have witnessed in Swat during our visits here. Inspired by our mother’s work, we finally decided to quit our jobs and move to Swat to teach English as volunteers at SRI Model School for Girls. The girls know that by getting an education, they are more likely to escape child marriage and a life chained to the home. We have never seen children so eager to learn, and it gives us hope for gender equality in the next generation.”

Nafees my daughter has already made a foray and Mina my granddaughter, just graduating from LSE, is heading to Swat to do volunteer work with Zahra.

Zebu’s vision is as big as her heart, and she has lofty aims for what SRI can achieve: “My dream is that all children have the opportunity to get an education, so they can reach their full potential. I am alarmed and saddened by the practice of childhood marriages, as it kills the dreams and aspiration of young girls and condemns them to a life of misery and hardship at a very tender age.”

“My biggest challenge is that the women, whose lives I am trying to improve, are enslaved by men, who imprison them in their own homes, so they do not have the freedom to join me while I fight for their equality.”

Zebu shared with me the heart-wrenching story of young Amrojan. “It broke my heart, when Amrojan, a woman who got training in one of our Skill Centres, told me her story with tears in her eyes. She said she got married at the age of 12, was a mother of three girls by the time she was 17, and became a widow at the age of 19. She said that after her husband died, she lost her status in her family as well as the community, and was forced to live with her brother-in-law, who took possession of her husband’s house, because she did not have a male child to inherit property. Her brother-in-law and his wife used Amrojan and her daughters as servants, and beat them all the time. She said her daughters were very eager to get an education, but she did not have money to send them to school. Amrojan told me that their lives were miserable until one of her neighbours told her about SRI’s Skills Centre, which trains women to acquire skills that help them earn a decent living. Amrojan said that after she took the dress-making and business training courses in our Centre, SRI gave her a sewing machine, and now she is able to comfortably earn 400-500 rupees a day at home. Amrojan said she was very happy, because she can now afford to send her children to school and has gained the respect of her family and community, since she is not a burden on them.”

Pakistan’s image in the world media is dominated by stories of suicide bombers, honour killings and violence. Surely it is time to recognisethe many positive and uplifting stories such as that of our very own Mother Teresa.

The writer is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University,Washington, DC, and author of Journey into Europe: Islam, Immigration, and Identity

Published in Daily Times, July 28^th 2018.