Relief workers provide positive role models for women

Near her house in the small town of Bisham, 250 km northeast of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, Nasreen, 10, is playing a game with her younger neighbours. Free briefly from their domestic chores, the girls are pretending to be doctors – tending to a rag doll that lies on a bed of twigs, its arm and leg bandaged. While the earthquake of 8 October 2005 destroyed many lives and many dreams, the relief effort that came after it, and the exposure of remote communities to teams of volunteers and experts who rushed to devastated areas from around the world and from major cities in Pakistan, seems to have generated a new vision. This is certainly true for Nasreen and her younger sister, Noor, eight. Both girls, the daughters of a local shopkeeper, want to study medicine - and are undeterred by the fact that they are not yet enrolled at primary school. "I saw women here who helped the injured people and injected babies so they would not get sick. I want to be like them," Nasreen shyly told IRIN. Fortunately for the child, her father, Ibrahim, supports the idea. "I was amazed at the way some of the women working here were able to help our people. Along with the men, they climbed hills, even drove vehicles and attended to our injured womenfolk. I want my daughters to study and be like them," he said. In Shangla district, making up a part of the picturesque Swat Valley, the literacy rate for the population of 541,000 is under 15 percent. For women, the figure stands at 3.7 percent – and even in Bisham – one of the biggest towns in the area – most girls do not go to school. But the arrival of thousands of relief workers, many of whom were women, appears to have inspired many women in Bisham and in neighbouring Battagram district. While Ibrahim is making plans to enrol his girls at school, alongside his two sons, others, such as Zeenat Bibi, 25, from a village nearby, hopes to persuade her husband, Jamil Khan, to let her start a small stitching business. Like over 150 other female quake victims who braved the icy winter at the Meira Camp, in Battagram, Zeenat learnt how to stitch under an office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)-funded programme. "The whirr of the machine made me feel powerful, and somehow strong. I love being able to design small clothes for children and even other women," she said. With many of the quake-affected areas in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan ranking among the most orthodox and conservative in the country, simply the chance to see women at work in different roles – as camp organisers, teachers, doctors, journalists and as a part of architectural or geological teams – has given many a new perspective on life. Even men have admitted to being greatly impressed by women volunteers, including young Pakistani women. Omar Gul, 32, in Battagram, who has worked in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), said: "At first people here did not believe me when I told them that there, women worked in offices, as engineers and in shops. Now they have seen it themselves." In addition, awareness-raising programmes linked to health and other concerns have also helped empower women. "Women loved to hear new things and to have their own queries about issues answered," said Swiss nurse Anna-Tina Jaeckle, who has spent the last month working with the social welfare organisation Living Education in quake-hit areas. All these factors have created a new awakening among many women and girls in quake-hit areas. How far the experience will help them overcome the orthodoxy that still prevails in many regions and to benefit in one way or the other from their experiences, remains to be seen.