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Thank you
for visiting the official website of
Rehmat Foundation
Charity Projects (UK), a
UK registered charity organisation.
We are
engaged in numerous welfare projects in Pakistan,
including free medical treatment, water pump
installations, education and mobile eye and Hepatitis
clinics, for those that cannot afford even these simple
basic human rights.
Most
recently we have been heavily involved in Northern Pakistan, in
the wake of
the catastrophic October 2005 earthquake that
resulted in the sudden, tragic deaths of over
70'000 lives. The disaster also left many men, women and
children without food or shelter in an are with the most
extreme climates and terrains in the world.
Please
browse around the site and see the many ways in which
our supporters are helping us to make a difference to
lives less fortunate than our own.
By
supporting us,
YOU
CAN
MAKE THE DIFFERENCE!
Please
tell your friends, family and colleagues about this
worthy cause.
Rehmat
Foundation Charity Projects - BACKGROUND
In 2001,
Mr Abdul Rashid Mirza, decided that after retirement, he
wanted to give something back to the community that he
was brought up in. Having recalled how difficult it was
for the average person in Pakistan to get basic medical
treatment that people in Western society take for
granted, he made plans to initiate a healthcare
project in his hometown of Jhelum. For this
Rehmat Karim Welfare Foundation
Jhelum was formed and registered as an
NGO in Pakistan in February 2002 to provide free
medical assistance to the poor and needy community of
Jhelum and its surrounding areas with the following
objectives:
v Establish
a Medical Clinic & Dispensary in Jhelum to provide free
primary medical care to the poor and needy residents of
Jhelum City and its surroundings.
v Establish
regular Mobile Medical Clinics to provide medical
assistance at doorsteps in the rural areas.
v Provide
assistance to those who cannot afford by getting them
medically treated from other hospitals.
v Collaborate
with other NGOs of good reputation for combined
community development.
v Undertake
health awareness programmes for prevention and control
of disease in the community and also hold training
workshops to enhance capacity building of paramedics and
other medical staff in the rural areas.
The project was initiated with the
donations to the tune of Rs.
1,500,000/- mostly from family, friends
and relatives in the UK and was split into two phases.
Since the main donors resided in UK,
Rehmat Foundation
was formed in the UK as a charity organization to
cover the funding raised in UK to initiate other
projects ie. establishment of medical clinics &
rehabilitation centers in Pakistan's less advantaged
urban areas and primary health care projects in the
rural areas for the poor and needy people of Pakistan.
PROJECTS
By the grace of Allah the first phase
completed with the establishment of a
FREE CLINIC at Jhelum
(Pakistan) on 10th February 2002. This
project is currently being overlooked by a committee of
12 board members on a volunteer basis that include
notables of Jhelum City as well. The ground and the
first floors of the three-story building was donated by
Mr. Abdul Rashid Mirza for this cause which were
converted to host a reception area, waiting areas,
treatment rooms and a dispensary, all fully equipped
with fittings and medical supplies, whilst the first
floor was kept for registration of in-patients for up to
10-beds. The staff comprises of two qualified MBBS
doctors, two dispensers, a receptionist, a clinic
Manager, and a cleaner. The start-up cost was
�2000.00 (not
including the cost of the donated building), and its
monthly running expenses have been approx
�600.00 per
month. The initial start-up cost and running cost for
the preceding period years, that came out to be around
Rs. 1,000,000, was addressed out of initial donations by
family members. So far more than
70,000 patients (with
now at average of 1000 patients per month) have received
free medical treatment and currently we have in balance
Rs. 1,000,000.
It is important to note at this stage, that
Rehmat Foundations Charity Projects is a strictly
non-profit charity organisation. There are no Directors,
no profit and no income is received by any of our
volunteers. All of the funds donated go directly to
running the organisation, paying the medical staff and
effectively administering the organisation.
Recent Efforts
EARTHQUAKE RELIEF EFFORTS
The above mentioned endeavours has given us courage and
great enthusiasm and we decided to embark on the second
phase of our project ie. moving from reactive medical
care towards provision of proactive/preventative health
care projects to help stop initiation and spread of
common illnesses. We have estimated a generation of
funds to the tune of
�60,000
to initiate this project which should be later equipped
with facilities like ultrasound equipment, labs, X-ray
machines, kidney dialysis machines and ambulances. In
this regard, we raised in excess of
�16,000
in the UK in the preceding period, but due to the
disastrous earthquake in Northern Pakistan, we faced a
tough choice. Either help the people suffering now and
postpone our dream of expanding our good work for the
benefit of the future, or continue on our path and hope
that the fantastic work that other NGOs in the region
were doing. After taking into account most of our main
donor's thoughts and comments and deliberating between
ourselves as a family, we decided that we had to
reprioritize our objectives. Thus, we decided to direct
our resources and efforts towards earthquake relief
efforts.
Rs. 2,000,000/-
were accumulated from our family, friends and relatives
and
five (5) truckloads of necessities including
foodstuff
were sent out to the affected areas. We used the
effective distribution network of
TAQ Welfare Foundation,
who had established a base camp at Mansehra and a
forward camp at Batrgram, to reach out to affected to
women and children in the
25 villages around Batgram,
rural areas around Balakot, and Oghi area west of
Mansehra using smaller vehicles, mules and even by
foot. The
operation lasted 10 days.
While these efforts were indigenously undertaken by
Rehmat Karim Foundation, Rehmat Foundation in UK
accumulated
clothing and medicine
worth approximately �20,000
over
3 weeks from all over London, and handed these over to
the Pakistan High Commission in UK for transportation to
the affected areas. We also sent out 2 containers
directly ourselves by sea, to ensure that our partners
in in the affected region could deal with distribution
personally to ensure these were going to the people who
needed them most.
FUTURE PROJECTS REQUIRING FUNDING
In Phase II of our project, we had intended to establish
a free in-patient 25-bed hospital at Jhelum but
considering the urgent need to look after the earthquake
victims at the time and after careful analysis of gaps
in the relief efforts, our comittee was instructed to
postpone work towards the hospital and instead
immediately establish “Rehmat
Rehabilitation Centre” one each at Rawalpindi/
Islamabad area and another at Jhelum. In
this regard, we have
accumulated an additional amount of about
�6000.00
but it is understood that we require a lot more to
generate for these projects as these
Rehab Centers
constitute a Physiotheraphy & Fitness Facility,
Ortrhopaedic Workshop to cater for amputees, a
psychiatric/ narcotics rehabilitation ward and post
traumatic stress treatment center.
In this regard we have formed a mobile team of
volunteers comprising a Psychiatrist Doctor and two
trained physiotherapists and an Administrator whom we
intend using for attending to patients in various
hospitals and in this regard we have signed an MOU with
Rawalpindi General Hospital at Rawalpindi. However we
very well understand that it
would require more resources to sustain it. We need
equipment as well as financial resources to the tune of
�60,000
to cover start-up and
running up expenses of the two centres for one year.
Establishment of these two 'Rehabilitation
Centers'
at Jhelum and Rawalpindi will require continued support
of all those who are already contributing and a
significant increase in assistance from new donors. We
can forward a list of the requisites if anyone is
willing to participate and collaborate in our efforts.
In addition we require sponsorship for our training
workshops to
train volunteers to undertake
physiotherapy/psychiatric & post traumatic stress
treatment
and also help us to achieve our plans to establish state
of the art
Orthopaedic Workshop
equipped with the latest technology.
Other
Achievements
In the last four years, in addition to above mentioned
clinic and disaster recovery facilities, we also
undertook the following schemes:
v Established
a
Free Clinic at Dhowk Jawinda,
Distt Attock, in collaboration with
TAQ Welfare Foundation
(an NGO working for community development of the area
like sanitation and water projects) where
a certified Hakim provides medical treatment/ health
care on weekly basis. Occasionally volunteer doctors
also visit the clinic. So far 5000 patients have
received free medical treatment at the cost of
Rs. 200,000/-.
v Hepatitis
Check-up Days
are held where hundres of patients attend for blood
samples to be taken to check for any signs of
contracting hepatitis (a common fatal illness in the
area) and the affected patients were given free
treatment.
v Polio
Vaccination Days
are held where over
hundreds of children
are vaccinated against polio
v Free
Eye Check-up Days
are held in various rural areas around Jhelum where the
eyes of hundreds of poor patients are checked for
serious problems such as catarachts.
v Beginning
in March 2004, we also started a
Mobile Clinic Service,
to visit rural areas on rented transport and volunteer
doctors & paramedical staff. We are still looking to
purchase an ambulance to replace the one we
occassionally rent.
I hope that reading this information has gone some way
to convincing you to support us, in continuing to help
the less advantaged people of Pakistan in their struggle
against their restriction of basic human rights. Please
don't put off contacting us till tomorrow. For some
people, tomorrow may never come....
MAKE
THE CALL ! MAKE THE DIFFERENCE
Thank You
& Jazaak Allah Khair,
Imran
Mirza
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