Jamshoro SOS village — sweet home to abandoned children. HYDERABAD, Sept 1: Eight-year-old Waqar, a resident of Swat, was playing with his friends after performing in a tableau presented in a SOS Village Jamshoro programme. The innocent boy wants to be a soldier. But he misses his mother, who ended up in jail after conviction, too much. “I visit her [mamma] every first Sunday in jail [woman prison in Hyderabad]. I miss her more than the father because I didn’t have chance to see him. Now I want to become army officer,” remarks the boy who is studying in Class III and doing well in studies. The boy was handed over to the village management by Sindh High Court through an order following conviction of his mother. He performed well in the tableau presented before the audience that gathered in SOS Village Jamshoro for a formal inauguration. Basic theme of SOS village is to provide a loving environment to children of deprived background to make them feel at home and ensure their mental development so that they do not have regret of what they have otherwise lost. They are provided access to education and regular sports in addition to recreational trips. They live like a family, sharing joy and pain. In crude terms, it is an orphanage. Children who qualify for four different categories of the village are lodged like complete orphan, an abandoned child, child of a mother who opts for second marriage and one whose one or both parents are in jail. The organisation that looks after SOS villages is headquartered in Austria. According to SOS director Zahida Hashmi, the organisation tries its best to ensure children’s integration with their fellow people. “That’s why we concentrate that their normal mental upbringing takes place here,” she adds. So far 27 weddings have taken place in SOS Village and there are 30 SOS grand-children. “Forty to forty-five of our children have started their career,” she says while introducing some of them to the gathering. There are 27 children who are living in SOS Village Jamshoro for different reasons like family upsets, dissolution of marriage of parents etc. A group of 10 children is looked after by each mother who lives with them in a home round the clock. The village houses 15 homes each with the capacity of 10 children. “I find a paradise in this [village] for myself,” says Mairaj Bano who looks after one such home here after separation from her husband. “I used to wish to have at least a child but God has given me 10 children,” Bano says. According to her, since they are children, minor issues crop up between them. “We pamper them even if both sides are wrong,” she says. After attaining the age of 12 or 13, boys are shifted to youth hostel of the organisation whereas girls study till they pass intermediate examination or get married. Some success stories of SOS village children are there as well.One such child of SOS Village Karachi, Arsalan Jokhio, is doing his graduation in electronic engineering from a private university. His village mate Bilal is working in an international courier service and Bilal’s sister Lubna, who married to her SOS fellow of Karachi, now teaches in a private school. Jokhio, 21, a resident of Model Colony Karachi, was excited to say that he did not have any remorse while being at the village. “I got everything here,” he says. Son of a driver who could not take care of his children after his wife’s death, Jokhio plans to do his masters and then Ph.D. “Fifty per cent cost of my studies is borne by the village management while the rest comes from my elder brother,” he says. Lubna and Bilal – both SOS children – share the same thing. Lubna was eight-year-old and the eldest among five children when they were admitted in the Karachi village by their father. He married to another woman after the death of his first wife. “Our stepmother didn’t want to keep us with her. I’ve a boy and a girl now,” she says. Philanthropists pay for each child, if they want, around Rs6,000 per month and in a sense become sponsor of a child. With each home well ventilated, the village is designed beautifully by architect Tariq Hassan. It is located in Jamshoro for which five acre piece of land was donated by Sindh University in 2007, then headed by Mazharul Haq Siddiqui. An amount of Rs140 million was spent on its construction.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 04:11:12 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015