Pakistan Floods

The Flooding in Pakistan

As Pakistan marks the 75^th anniversary of the partition from India and the birth of the nation, it has been struck by some of the worst flooding in its recent history caused by torrential monsoon rains.

There has been five times as much rainfall compared to the 30-year average in the worst hit areas. Villages and huge areas of agricultural land have been cut off. According to the Government of Pakistan: a third of the country, equivalent to an area the size of Great Britain, is under water.

1 million homes have been destroyed or badly damaged.
1200 people have lost their lives
13,000 people have been injured
470,000 people have been displaced and are living in camps

Water borne diseases and access to safe clean drinking water are a huge issue.

Infrastructure including roads and bridges have been badly damaged making transport and relief efforts difficult.

Disaster Aid UK & Ireland are launching an appeal to help. We are joining Disaster Aid country partners, NGOs and other relief organisations and are actively reaching out to communicate with local Rotarians and other organisations to establish exactly what resources are needed.

With your help and generosity allied to our expertise in shelter and safe water solutions we can give ‘a hand up, not a handout’ to people who desperately need our help and humanity.

Welcome to Disaster Aid UK & Ireland

Disaster Aid UK & Ireland is one of the founding partners of Disaster Aid International (DAI). DAI is an international organisation, involving Rotary Clubs around the world, with the mission to:

Respond to disasters with the supply of humanitarian aid to the affected communities and/or individuals.
Work in partnership on humanitarian projects funded by other organisations including Rotary clubs and Rotary districts.

In contrast to many other disaster-response groups, our aim is also to provide an infrastructure that allows affected communities to regain their normal lives.

If your organisation, club or group would like a speaker for your meetings, we would be very happy speak about Disaster Aid UK & Ireland, and answer any questions they might have.

Please contact us with suggested details of the time and date of the meeting. Email: admin@disasteraiduk.org

Recent Project Supplying Water Filters to India

We have had a long established and very successful relationship with the Rotary Club of Changanacherry in Kerala, India and in particular with Past District Governor Scaria Jose Katoor. This relationship has borne fruit on a number of occasions when we have provided Sawyer water filters to be distributed. The importance of building such relationships is emphasised when, due to Covid-19, we have been unable to deploy our DARTs as we did on our deployment to Kerala in 2019. Having such a trusted partner on the ground gives us the reassurance that, in the absence of DARTs, we can be totally sure that our aid, so generously given by donors, is deployed effectively, efficiently and with transparency to the people who need it most.

In November 2021 we learned that the Koottickal region of Kerala had suffered from yet more flooding and landslides and we arranged for 100 Sawyer water filters to be distributed by RC Changanacherry. The project was inaugurated in the presence of a member of Kerala State Legislative Assembly, Snr Advocate Job Michael and the filters will be transported to Koottickal for distribution. The inauguration ceremony included the lighting of special lamps which is believed to be auspicious.

We hope in the near future to be able to start deploying DARTs again but in the meantime, we are grateful to RC Changanacherry for assisting us once more in helping the people of Kerala.

View video for the role of DARTS

Deployments

With the advent of Covid-19, our usual method for deployments has been severely disrupted, in that we have been unable to utilise our fully trained Disaster Aid Response Team volunteers (DARTS). However, in the ordinary course of events and hopefully in the near future we would send DARTS to the affected country in order to:

Conduct an assessment of the disaster and local needs;
Coordinate with relevant governments, aid agencies and the affected communities to ensure that aid is deployed where most effective;
Manage the effective distribution of equipment, tents etc. to the sites of deployment;
Train members of the local community so that they can be involved in the distribution and deployment of the equipment, tents etc.;
Work to ensure that deployments are designed to support longer term sustainability;
Monitor and evaluate our deployments to ensure that both the products we are deploying as well as the means of distribution are relevant, effective and reach out to the most vulnerable.

MORE INFORMATION

How you can help - Donate

We have found that people can be incredibly generous once a disaster has struck. In such cases, we usually create a special fund raising campaign and funds raised by this campaign will be used for the specific disaster concerned. However, a real challenge for all disaster aid organisations, ourselves included, is that we need to be able to raise funds in preparation for future disasters.

This enables us to pre-position the stock of aid products in various parts of the world so we can respond quickly to the very urgent need when disaster next strikes. (donations received now are going to restocking tents and other aid products for future disaster aid work)