SFRD

Left with nothing, one of the most severe climate catastrophes

Pakistan is ranked eighth among counties most vulnerable to climate crises despite contributing less than one percent to global carbon emissions, according to the Climate Change Risk Index 2022. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) says that since the beginning of the monsoon season till today (30th August), more than 1332 people have died across the country. 5600+ people have been severely injured, 870,351 hundreds of thousands of livestock have been killed, 210+ bridges has been collapsed, 40+ small dams have been breached, and almost 1 million houses have been damaged, with no respite from nature on the horizon.

The needs of the survivors are varied. In one village, the people are desperate for food. In another, they say they have their grains but need money to meet their other needs. However, in the other village, many children have developed waterborne diseases. The calamity struck Pakistan when the country faced an economic crisis, with dwindling foreign cash reserves and historical inflation.

We are at this point ground zero, the front line, with extreme weather events, which we have seen from early this year in an unrelenting cascade of the heat wave, forest fires, flash floods, multiple glacial lake-outburst-flood events, and now the monster monsoon of the decade. The water on the ground has inundated huge swaths of Pakistan, with more than 33 million people affected, many stranded. Thousands are without shelter; many are without food. Tens of thousands of people are at the mercy of an exceptional monsoon season, which has wreaked havoc across Pakistan.

Greatness is not what you have; it is what you give.

Mission Essar powered by SFRD and presented by APSUP (Association of Private Sector Universities of Pakistan) and PAMI (Pakistan Association of Medical and Dental Institutions), has been launched. We have aimed to raise a fund of 100 Million PKR for the first phase and in kind, which includes clothes and blankets, tents, life-saving medicines, medical camps, rations and help them re-initiate their small businesses. We all have to contribute because this country and the lives of our brothers and sisters are on the line. All they need is our generosity and a hand to help them escape their suffering. Unprecedented circumstances call for unprecedented kindness.