School Teaches Vocational Skills to Earthquake Evacuees

ABBOTTABAD—“There were no men in the villages when the earthquake hit,” Saima Pervez recalled. “My aunt went back to find her children in the house and was crushed under a door.” Two children of the family survived, sandwiched between the corpses of their siblings.

The women in Imtiaz Bibi’s class come from remote villages surrounding the Mansehra area. After their homes were destroyed, they moved to Jhanghi, on the outskirts of Abbottabad, where some live with their husbands, who are drivers and laborers, and some share flats with other girls.

Every day, the girls walk one hour to the Disaster Management Center (DMC), operated by the Abbottonian Medical Association and American Pakistani Physicians of North America, where they learn sewing, embroidery, and beadwork for free. In 10 months, they will know the basics of making and selling handicrafts. DMC will sell their products and give them the profits to take, along with their new skills, back to the villages.

Imtiaz Bibi (left) began teaching such skills to girls in Mansehra last year, where she rented a house and created Sahara Vocational Center. She too is an affectee; her family lives in Balakot, where they have used their initial ERRA* check to build two mud and stone rooms for temporary shelter.

Before joining DMC, she lived inside her vocational center and paid rent with the fees she collected, a great feat for a woman who at the age of 13 had never been inside a school. Now, the Disaster Management Center is providing her a salary to run the class.

“I had an interest in embroidery and sewing since I was a little child,” she said. “I picked up the work wherever I could learn it. I had to beg my mother to let me out of the house I the beginning.”

For the girls in the class, there is no choice but to leave their homes and find work. They pay high rents in Jhanghi, as house prices have quadrupled with the influx of international NGOs and relief offices in the region. They are learning these skills in the hope of gaining a job and helping their families pay the bills until they can rebuild their village homes.

“When I return to my village, I will teach the girls there how to make these crafts,” said Shamaila (right), a 20-year-old student in the class. “We were never taught how to read and write, but now I want us to be able to do something for ourselves.”

*The Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority is a government agency providing earthquake affectees with Rs. 175,000 to rebuild their homes. Initial checks of Rs. 25,000, about $400, have been provided to some affectees.