| Pakistan
has extremely poor health status. Even when compared with many poor countries
at similar stages of development, Pakistan spends the lowest on health facilities.
Even in comparison with the developing countries, which have much lower
state of development and per capita income, Pakistan's vital health statistics
are among the lowest. Within these statistics, the health indicators of
the rural areas of Pakistan are significantly worse than that of the urban
areas. |
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The current
state of the people in general and of women and children in particular is
unsatisfactory. The existing health delivery system is urban based, focuses
mainly on curative services and is greatly underutilized due to poor monitoring
and supervisory mechanisms. Despite of the importance of improved supply
of drinking water and hygiene for controlling the diseases, Policy makers
and experts have ironically paid less attention on this sector. In rural
areas, the living environment of poor quality, and availability of clean
drinking water is ubiquitous. Similarly due to unchecked migration of poor
people from rural areas to the cities have resulted in the development of
slums with no availability of clean drinking water. |
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In the absence
of enough financial as well as technical resources, it is widely recognized
that the majority of the health issues of the rural and urban areas are
best addressed through local Non-Governmental Organization. This simply
emphasis on community participation and holding people responsible for
safe drinking water and health education projects for effective and efficient
control of diseases.
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In view of the critical need for the improved drinking water, IRM as part
of its efforts to improve the quality of life of the poor and disadvantaged
people has designed a project to provide Bio-Sand Filters to the people
of urban slums as well as rural areas. It is hoped that this facility ultimately
reduces the incidents of diseases significantly. |
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| The
project title "Health through clean drinking water" is a project
of IRM that primarily focused on targeting villages and urban-slums of Punjab
and NWFP, Pakistan. This project attempts to support poor and vulnerable
communities to have direct access to clean drinking water. This project
was developed by IRM to ensure the direct access of people of villages and
urban slums at Punjab and NWFP by providing Bio-sand Filters (BSF). The
goal of the project is to prevent health problems such as diarrhea, cholera
etc. |
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support of the project goal three main objectives for the project have been
designed. The first objective focuses on forming Community Based Organizations.
Secondly, capacity building of members of the CBOs by providing training
and awareness on prevention of diseases and CBO management. Thirdly, provide
BSF at least each household in each community. Project intends to initiate
savings habits among the CBO members and keep those savings in saving accounts
in schedule banks. This component will help the CBO to sustain and start
internal loaning for micro-enterprises, emergencies, community development,
dispensary etc. The clients of this project would be women, people from
low-income class. |
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