Welcome to Petarian - Abdalian Relief Efforts

Progress Report of Nov 01-03, 2005

• In line with our decision, our teams finally returned to Islamabad from Rerah to go home and celebrate Eidul Fitr with their families. Our camp and medical supplies have been stored with 5 Baluch Regiment for safekeeping until we return. All relief goods in our stock at Rerah have been given out to the affected people of the villages in that area directly by our volunteers. Left over supplies were given out through 5 Baluch Regiment. We would like to thank all the volunteers who spent their precious time at the camp for the sake of the earthquake affectees.
  
• Of the last of those who returned, the contingent from Kohat returned to their homes in NWFP, and Aamir Mumtaz took a bus to Lahore and onwards to Larkana, Sindh (his hometown). The only one who didnt have to travel any further was Arif Masud.
  
• Two volunteers from abroad have arrived in Islamabad and would like to spend their Eid holidays at our camp in Rerah. We are in the process of making arrangements to transport them to Rerah, where they will remain with the 5 Baluch Regiment to conduct surveys and distribute relief goods. We were unable to get them on a helicopter flight today to Bagh. We are very hopeful to do so by tomorrow morning. These two are Waqar and Arsalan.
  
• We have received funding from the crew member of Air Universal of Jordan to supply 160 tents to the affected areas. We shall be dispatching these insha Allah on the next day of Eid as no truck drivers are available to drive the trucks during the holidays.
  
• Discover Islam and Friends of Bahrain have contributed nearly Rs. 600,000 for distributing Eid gifts to those who lost their homes during the earthquake. For the past 3 days, Mrs. Naureen Mahmud and Anushey have been very instrumental in managing this program. We finally achieved the following:
  
  o We procured special Eid clothes for around 1,500 children between the ages of 1 and 14. This included very colorful velvet embroidered clothes for girls (in different colors), and shalwar kameez sets for boys. We also got socks and shoes for many of them.
  o With the help of the volunteers (all college students) listed below, we conducted a survey of 3 camps at the CDA tent city set up in Sector H-11 of Islamabad where thousands of homeless people are housed temporarily. The volunteers went to each tent to identify the number of children, their ages and gender. Then packets were made for each tent and given to the children at the entrance of each tent. This avoided chaos of people thronging at our trucks.
  o The process of survey and distribution took up all day of 3 Nov, just in time for Eid. We hope that the children of these 3 camps will have some very good and colorful clothes to wear on Eid day (tomorrow).
  o The volunteers who worked for this program are Muhammad, Basil, Atif, Asad, Abid, Hammad, Zohaib, Umar, Sikander, Zulfiqar, Taha, Zulfiqar the second, Ahmed, Umar the second, Maryam, Mustafa, Abbas, and Hasan.
  o In addition, we are thankful to Air Commodore Najamul Asr of PAF who guided us in this process.
  o While we were distributing, 3 other families who had brought clothes for another 200 or so children handed over the stuff to us to distribute due to the very organized manner in which our teams were operating.
  o The three camps where the clothes were distributed were the Turkish Red Crescent camp, Al-Rasheed Trust Camp, and the Akhtar Trust camp.
  o At least these three camps will have this little token from us - courtesy of Discover Islam and our Bahraini friends - to make their Eid more colorful and happier.
  
• We hope to sit down and work further on our rehab and relief plans during these Eid holidays.