Personal testimonies and case histories

Country: PAKISTAN
Name: Khimo Dano
Age: 50
Home: Village of Sonal Boh, Thar District

Khimo has a family of seven members to support. Khimso has his wife, his old father and mother and four dependent children. His source of income is manual labour in Islamkot town which is about 15 km from his village. He earns around Rs.1000 (£12) monthly from doing manual labour whereas his monthly cost of simple food items is about 2500( £30) . His two small children work in a carpet loom factory and earn about Rs. 500/- (£6) each a month. His two daughters collect fire wood which is sold by Khimo in Islamkot town. The daughters also pick leaves of trees which is sold as fodder in the town. All these casual earning activities help them to satisfy the very basic food need of the Khimo family. None of the children go to school as Khimo cannot afford the cost of schooling.
"With income we earn from all sources we can hardly buy wheat flour, tea and sugar. We are unable to afford a nutrient meal composed of cooking oil, pulses, meat and milk. We have no land and no livestock so we also cannot get a loan from money lenders. We have no jewellery which we can pound to get some credit", says Khimo. He also says that sometimes when he does not get casual labour job and his sons are not employed by carpet contractors, they have to adjust their daily food intake. Instead of three meals, they take only two, sometimes just one if worse comes to worse. " We also resort to eating wild fruits and vegetables when the bad times come. It is equal to eating grasses", says Khimo. Due to poor diet Khimo's children remain weak and sick. Their growth is badly affected due to food shortages. Khimo is worried that if this continues, the family will suffer more.

He leaves early morning after taking a cup of tea looking for casual labour. He knows that if he does not get work his family will have to go without food. The small earnings of the children from carpet making and selling of fire wood brings very little income to afford not even tea which they must take to keep their body and soul together.

The current drought situation has made matters worse. The casual labour wage rate has fallen as there are more unemployed persons who are willing to work for less wages. On the other hand the food item rates have gone up more than 30%. The prices offered for animals have drastically fallen as they are physically weak due to lack of fodder and the traders are not ready to buy them. Taking advantage of peoples' poor condition and urge for food, traders buy fire wood and leaves of trees for fodder for less than half the normal rates.

The Government has not done much to alleviate or even reduce the sufferings of drought affected people. The NGOs have also not done anything yet to address the problems created by onset of drought in the Thar desert.

The Participatory Village Development Programme (PVDP) is working with its partner organizations to find a sustainable solution to the livelihood problem of the people affected by recurring droughts. The options are few but there are opportunities which are not rain dependent like handicraft. This can be explored and people can be engaged in making handicrafts for a living. Drought mitigation and rehabilitation plans are also made by PVDP and its partners (subject to availability of funds) in which, poor households will be helped with building rainwater harvesting tanks to store rainwater for drinking purposes. Other activities planned include repairs and renovation of community water wells, de-silting of community water ponds and animal vaccination and provision of fodder in drought hit areas. These are all medium term interventions, however. What is immediately required is the food commodities for people who have not migrated and fodder for their animals.

By Dominic Stephen
President,
Participatory Village Development Programme (PVDP)
Thar Region, Sindh, Pakistan.
30th January 2003.