President Dr Arif Alvi Thursday stressed the need for the government, public representatives, NGOs and other stakeholders to complement each other’s efforts in providing relief to the flood victims, restoring their livelihoods and rebuilding their houses and physical infrastructure in the flood-hit areas.
The president said this while talking to Muhammad Anwar Khan, President of Islamic Relief USA; Asif Ali Sherazi, Country Director of Islamic Relief Pakistan and Raza Hussain Qazi, Advocacy Specialist at Islamic Relief Pakistan (IRP), who called on him, at Aiwan-e-Sadr. The president appreciated the programme launched by Islamic Relief International in Pakistan to empower the widows by imparting them with skills to earn their livelihood, educating the street children in various parts of the country and improving the skills level of underprivileged persons. He said that Islamic Relief International might also launch a programme for providing digital skills, through physical and online modes of education, to enable the youth bulge to gain market-based skills and earn a reasonable livelihood.
He also proposed that the mosques, which remain available from Fajr to Zohar, might be considered for providing education to the street children and out-of-school children by providing appropriate training and education to Pesh Imams to be used as teachers.
He appreciated Islamic Relief International for the philanthropic and charity works in distressed societies in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries, which, he said, would improve the image of Muslims and would help in spreading the universal values of Islam.
President Alvi also appreciated the work of Islamic Relief Pakistan for involving communities to help themselves in terms of earning a livelihood, creating education opportunities, providing health and nutrition, improving water resources, providing sanitation and making the communities resilient to natural and manmade disasters and negative fallouts of climate change and global warming.
He lauded the charity work undertaken by Islamic Relief International and Islamic Relief Pakistan to provide shelter, water, food, cash grants and hygiene items to flood-affected persons.
He stressed the need for better coordination between the Government of Pakistan and Islamic Relief International and other stakeholders to increase their reach to the flood-affected people across Pakistan to ensure their early recovery and long-term rehabilitation.
Muhammad Anwar Khan, President of Islamic Relief USA informed the President that Islamic Relief International with its headquarters in Birmingham, UK was working across 44 countries, including Pakistan to help the downtrodden communities since 1992.
Asif Ali Sherazi, Country Director of Islamic Relief Pakistan briefed the President of Pakistan on its philanthropic work and said that Islamic Relief Pakistan had made 341 interventions in the sectors of food security and sustainable livelihoods, education, health and nutrition, child and women development, water resource management in KPK, AJK, Sindh and Balochistan, which was helping the community to increase their potential.
