It was Monday, the first work day with the usual rush, excitement and anxiety of work! In the morning, I left the house slightly early to arrive at my pick up point in order to reach work on time. Just five minutes away from my home, the pickup point for my office vehicle is located on a busy road. I was used to waiting there for around 5-10 minutes daily while observing people.
Every day, it felt unpleasant waiting as there is a filthy site of garbage just across the road in front of where I wait everyday, unfortunately, I don’t have the choice to stand elsewhere to avoid this sight. The mound of garbage kept increasing until somebody from the community set it on fire, which is a usual practices in our area because we don’t have a proper system or mechanism in place for solid waste management. Garbage is everywhere and is the most distasteful side of my community and country.
On that particular morning, something changed inside me after seeing a little girl between the age of 10 and 12 holding a big plastic bag on her shoulder walking towards the heap of garbage. She then sits in the middle of the garbage dumping site and starts picking items that could be useful from the dirty pile, which no one would think to touch. I was stunned to witness the scene where a little girl on this pleasant morning should be in school instead of picking from garbage to earn her livelihood. Unfortunately, picking and selling useful items from the garbage pile is one of the occupation of people living in extreme poverty. I felt terrible and gloomy inside, in fact helpless to avoid this from happening, such a shame for environmental protection and impact of climate.
This is symbolic of how heap of garbage accelerates environmental hazard and why this little girl has to choose picking garbage to earn money.
THERE IS A DIRECT LINK BETWEEN CLIMATE JUSTICE AND THIS LITTLE GIRL’S LIFE – HOW LACK OF SOCIOECONOMIC JUSTICE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AFFECTS ONE’S LIFE.
The constant presence of garbage shows the feeble civic administration, negligence of environmental protection and setting the garbage on fire is nothing but abandoning of climate fortification while thousands of children like the girl putting their health and life at risk!
I was distressed and thought about what could be done so I wrote a letter to the municipal authorities about the situation. I met the municipal council to reveal and convince them to fulfill their due role and responsibilities. After several attempts and follow-ups, municipal cooperation cleaned the corner, however that was not enough. I do plan on holding a meeting with influential community members to motivate them for environmental protection and cleaning the area. I have also established a youth group as in a role of vigilance, protector and activist. I should try to hold a plantation drive in my area. I am building strong contacts with elected representatives and government authorities to ensure seriousness and action to ensure environmental protection. Luckily, I found the girl picking garbage and tried to convince her parents to get her enrolled in a government-owned school where education is free. I gave her a baby plant to grow outside of her house situated in the slum area. I assume that at least now the plant will protect her from environmental hazard! May be one day, my little efforts will change people’s perspective to become change makers from individual to collective efforts for climate justice!
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Do not Cut our Trees!
This is a unique success story about a woman activist who stood in front of corporate company and government to protect her native land and the ecosystem of the area from being damaged. Mohali is a 45 years old lady belonging to Tharparker Desert of Pakistan. Thar, the land of harsh weather, infertile and shifting sand dunes is becoming a territory of hope. Sparse population, extreme temperatures, and feeble socio-economic conditions makes the lives of women difficult. After discovering coal mines in the area, there was a sudden shift of interest from corporate companies and government in the area which changed the socio-economic life of the local community.
Buildings arose and field sites were captivated with heavy machineries. For installation of heavy equipments and transportation, there was a huge drive of cutting trees to clean the area while building airport runway. Large number of trees were cut which was the source of providing fodder for livestock especially camels. The poor community had lost their main source of income of livestock (animals). There were more than 2500 trees removed in order to clean the coal mine site.
As the desert already faces acute shortage of plantation and harvesting, the damage was alarming to the ecosystem of the area. Mohali, a woman emerging as a community leader decided to raise her voice and called a community meeting to address this issue. Initially, she faced several negative reactions, and lack of cooperation from the community, as it’s a male dominated society therefore creating traditional barriers. Community elders didn’t want the corporate companies and government to get a negative impression and resistance so the community could get employment through labour work in the project.
MOHALI TRIED HARD TO CONVINCE THE COMMUNITY, ESPECIALLY THE MALE MEMBERS, TO JOIN HANDS AND RAISE THEIR VOICES TO PROTECT THEIR MOTHERLAND FROM DAMAGE.
After constant trying, the community finally agreed to hold a dialogue with company administration and convinced them to be vigilant and protect the environment.
Initially the corporate company didn’t pay attention to the issue, seeing the empathic attitude of company administration, Mohali who led the campaign, decided to take assertive actions and started demonstrating in front of the site. After many days, the administration became concerned and worried when seeing the accelerated reaction from the community. Administration decided to hold dialogue and negotiate with the community and Mohali representing the community successfully negotiated to start plantation drive of up to 5000 plants and cutting trees was not allowed. She also got assurance of obtaining maximum labour/job opportunities for local residents. This was all due to the bravery and courage of a women to protect the environment and ecosystem of the desert area of Thar.
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Clean drinking water is basic human right!
The alarming threat of clean drinking water scarcity constitutes one of the biggest challenges to Pakistan as per a recent survey that reveals 84 % of the population do not have access to safe drinking water. Most supplied drinking water is heavily contaminated with arsenic, well above the permissible limit of 50% per billion.
The shocking situation grabbed the attention of a young woman journalist, Sara Shaikh, as she felt enormous pain and concern over the situation. She is also a common citizen who risks her life by consuming highly contaminated water because there is no alternative except to purchase expensive bottled water.
This threat is not less dangerous than that of terrorism because it has been taking millions of lives every year, especially those of children.
WATER IS THE MOST IMPORTANT AND BASIC NECESSITY FOR HUMAN LIFE. WITHOUT WATER, LIFE CAN’T EXIST.
All over the world, more than a billion people do not have access to safe drinking water because the increasing population of the world has lowered the level of ground water. Water is indeed a basic human necessity and having access to clean and safe drinking water is an indispensable human right. Having paid attention to the water crisis, the least the government can do is to ensure smooth provision of this most basic public health necessity to the deprived people and to prevent thousands of Pakistani children from dying.
Considering the high magnitude of the issue, Sara decided to raise the issue using her journalistic abilities and focus. She found out multiple reasons for water contamination and got the attention of authority to look into the meter. She investigated how underground water supply lines were entangled with sewerage system and found both lines were mixed up therefore making it easy for the water to get highly contaminated for human consumption. The ultimate solution is to replace old and damaged underground pipelines as they have already expired. Sara perused local government and advocate the issue through her continuous writing and in-depth reporting. Her blogs and stories reveal the issue in a very effective and impactful manner and states that potable water is becoming a rare commodity all over the world. In some region, water is even more costly than milk and every year unhygienic practices tied with impure water usage cause a number of diseases which results in high costing treatment for water-based illnesses.
She wants municipal government to take this issue on top agenda while planning development work for the city.
SHE IS MEETING THE AUTHORITIES, FOLLOWING UP ON ONGOING WORK, CONVINCING THE LOCAL PEOPLE TO PUT PRESSURE ON LOCAL REPRESENTATIVES OF THE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
She is become a symbol of resistance and people’s voice to ask nothing but their basic right of access to safe drinking water!
