COVID-19 Emergency
As the rest of the world, Pakistan is facing Coronavirus emergency. The situation is even worse due to the high rate of illiteracy among the families of the community: the absolute disinformation makes them unaware about the danger of the virus and its high level of infectiousness. For this reason, Faisalabad Parish organised supporting teams which go to the villages and reach the families of the community to inform them about the sanitary emergency and provide them with simple rules of conduct to be followed in everyday life to prevent infection. In fact, in Pakistan, all the family members usually sleep together in the same room and share everything, therefore they are told the importance of sleeping separately, avoiding to share objects, clothes or whatever.
Pandemic is affecting everybody, the rich and the poor of the whole country, but the most in need are those who live with daily salaries (workers, farmers, etc.). The main goal of the project supported by PRO.SA Foundation, is to assist those households who could not otherwise support their children during the lockdown. In Faisalabad Parish new cases have been identified and the general practitioner suggested giving vitamin C to all the people infected by Covid-19, the majority of which are women or children.
In order to help the families of the Parish to face this emergency keeping them safe, we organised teams of volunteers who deliver door-to-door a care package and a sanitation kit for each household, which should be enough for a month, hoping that the virus spread will rapidly slow down.
Each care package contains: 2 kilos of legumes/lentils (4 types of legumes, half a kilo each), 3 kilos of rice, 5 litres of kitchen oil, 2 kilos of sugar, half a kilo of tea, half a kilo of salt and chili powder.
The sanitation kit for each family contains 50 masks (sewed by the women of the parish), 2 hand sanitizers, 5 soaps and 2 box of toilet paper.
Another big problem connected to coronavirus is school closures. Together with the lack of adequate technologies and the extreme poverty of the households, it obstacles the learning path of the most vulnerable children with irreversible consequences.
In order to grant the right to study, PRO.SA Foundation is supporting 10 educational summer camps for 300 children from the outskirts of Faisalabad. Each camp has its own space and is managed by a competent teacher, properly salaried, who alternatively runs educative and recreative activities, always respecting anti covid rules. During the day, children and teachers are always wearing a mask, they often sanitize their hands and keep at safe distance.
