Balekot -- 7 December
The road through the mountains was only briefly blocked and is now open. The destruction increases the closer you get, as Balekot was the epicentre of the earthquake. Completely flattened, with large displaced communities living in tents from both Balekot and the surrounding area. Some come to Balekot briefly to find relatives and others come for help.
Children from the primary school that was destroyed are now being taught by an ex-grocer whose business was demolished. Only their teacher was killed. A secondary school has restarted in a semi-permanent structure -- 300 students were killed.
Baber Colonui, Garhi Habibullah (Tehsil Balekot) -- 7 December
Met Syeda Seemi Gilani (Seemi), who has been hired by Ockenden as a community mobiliser. She clearly knows many of the key local people and has an excellent knowledge of the local area. She is intelligent, speaks English and can use a computer. She has been an English teacher for 3 years and has run the local Muhamonadon private school.
They have set up a local school, again in tents, but with no outside support at all. As it was part of the private school network, it has no government support. The government have restarted their school in the hamlet too, but appear to be meeting a lot of resistance from local people as the girls' school here collapsed, killing 287 children. Faith in the government school network has gone, and teachers appear to prefer to work for the Muhamonadon School for free, rather than for the small government salary. Before the earthquake, about 60% of the schools in the area were private. As teachers in the private schools do not receive a government salary, Ockenden will have to provide some kind of financial incentive to enable teachers to work. They will also need full training, as most have never received any teacher training at all. A lot of people are offering to come forward and be trained, so it should not be hard to find new people to train. Many of the schools in the area had a high student-teacher ratio -- as much as 50 plus children per teacher.
This area is semi-urbanised and the people are generally literate and well qualified. Seemi said that although the schools are traditionally split into girls and boys schools, the teachers will be happy to be trained as a mixed group. Even for the villages behind Garhi Habibullah, which are less literate, teachers to train should not be hard to find and people are willing to move around a bit too.
The area is a summer zone, so will not close for the winter break. Even in the mountains behind the hamlet, it is expected that people will remain in their villages all winter as although it will rain heavily, it probably won't snow. Areas the other side of Balekot will get snow and people will leave for the winter. It is possible that many locally displaced people will come to Garhi Habibullah for the winter, so the school population is likely to increase. This will mainly be due to a supply chain problem with getting food to the mountainous areas during bad weather. If the rains are bad, even those in the hills behind Garhi Habibullah are likely to come down. When they return in the spring, it would be useful to go with them and establish schools in these villages too.
Sixty schools have been identified as needing to be rehabilitated -- 20 in the immediate area of Garhi Habibullah and 40 in the villages in the hills behind. 80% of the local schools have collapsed and the remaining 20% are damaged beyond repair. All require tents initially, then semi-permanent structures. Not concrete schools though, as students are not willing to re-enter such schools.
No full assessments of these areas have been made, and this needs to be done before we commit to these villages. Seemi believes that no NGOs are working in education in any of these villages, although shelter and food distribution is likely to have taken place. The impression of local people, Seemi and Roza Gul was that the children are suffering from less psychosocial trauma than expected, but that the adults are very badly affected. The area is close to Kashmir, so it will be easy to work across the border also.
It gets dark at 5:30pm, so there is not too much time in the day. Schools generally start at 8am. There is already electricity and phone lines, even to the tents. However, there is no real form of heating or anything to cook on, and tents have already been burning down and killing the inhabitants when people try to light fires inside the tents to keep warm. Heating the tents will therefore be a challenge, so winterised tents are vital.
Semi-permanent structures can not be built until after the winter, as it is likely to be too cold to set the concrete. Rains are likely to cause landslides, making roads difficult to negotiate. It will be necessary to train teachers before this time, and we may not be able to monitor them for a short period. Having local community mobilisers and supervisors with good local knowledge, based in Garhi Habibullah will maximise our ability to reach people however. We should be able to get an office locally, either in a building or by setting up tents.
Spontaneous Camp -- 8 December
One hundred and six families are living in a spontaneous camp set up by Sungi. Most are from Jared village in the mountains on the Kashmir border, plus some Kashmiris. Jared is on a steep mountain side, and the earthquake caused the top half of the village to slip down the mountain and destroy the bottom half. Most people left immediately on foot, although some waited until the road was cleared 15 days later and came by jeep. Others stayed longer to secure their land and belongings as much as possible. Most of their agricultural land has been ruined.
They brought with them the few things they managed to salvage: some battered utensils, some livestock and the clothes they were wearing at the time. Sungi has provided them with canvas (not winterised) tents, some food and blankets. The camp has access to a pump that was already there and 2 latrines have been erected. Food is now only delivered sporadically.
A local charity has set up a primary school. Their usual work is teaching deaf children in Abbottabad. The two teachers are being driven in each day, despite the presence of 4 trainable teachers in the camp. The children sit outside at the moment, all in one enclosed yard of an old compound building. In the winter the children will sit in one of the rooms and on the veranda, but the building is not in good condition. The teachers have no training in teaching big classes of children, and there is no structure. However, the NGO have provided warm hats, shoes and classroom materials, including chairs, blackboards, chalk and textbooks.
Many children do not bother to attend school and can be found just wandering around the camp. The adults are clearly very traumatised and frightened for their future. They do not know when or if they will return to their homes, and they say that there is nothing to go back to.
Jabba Camp -- 8 December
There are 3,300 people in the Pakistan military-managed Jabba Camp. It is the largest camp in Mansehra, and is managed by Colonel Abed. It is split into 4 sectors, called A, B, C and D. We visited sector C, where they have shelter, a pump and water tank, space to do their own cooking, latrines, an area to wash clothes and themselves, a playground, a child protection centre, a primary school, a high school and a nursery. The schools are for all four sectors, as C is located in the centre of the camp.
Jabba Camp primary school has 400 children and five teachers. Some were teachers before, but only one was a government trained teacher and he taught at high school level locally. The tents have been provided by UNICEF, but they are the wrong kind as they are too small for the large classes of 75 and it is not possible for the teacher to stand up in them. They don't have enough classroom materials to go around, and there are no blackboards -- schools in a box do not appear to have arrived here, even though it is a UNICEF school run by a Quetta based NGO called the Taraqee Foundation. The teachers use canes liberally to keep control, but the children are paying little attention. Girls and boys are separated, and many of the classes are taking place outside.
Colonel Abed complained that the Taraqee Foundation never visits the primary school, and the NGO are never available to discuss issues with him. He has teachers offering their services every day, but he has not been able to get the Taraqee Foundation to interview them. He wants more teachers, materials and tents for the school. He would also like to change the NGO managing the primary school, but is happy with the high school.
Colonel Abed informed us that around 70 new people arrive at the camp every day. During the winter he is expecting this to rise to 200 -- 300 per day, and the total camp population to increase by 3-4,000. He has space for another 5-6,000 and has already found a site for Jabba Camp 2 for any overflow. He is hoping people will return around May. At the moment he does not have space for a second primary school, as there is no space allocated to another playground. However, this could be found if necessary. Other NGOs are responsible for the watsan, shelter and food supply, with the military coordinating it all. It appeared to be well organised.
We also visited the primary school, which was run by 3 women from the camp. These women were very traumatised by their experienced, and had no experience of working with children. The children appeared bored. Roza Gul got them to play a lively game, and once they had the hang of it they ran around in delight, laughing and clapping. With some training and support, it could be a good place, but the women do not really know what to do with the children. There were some colourful charts on the wall and one school in a box, which was not in use.
General comments
1. The children appear to be less traumatised than the adults (although of course this is not true for all). Many children are reluctant to be too far away from their parents and they are unwilling to enter concrete structures. Otherwise, they are able to continue their education. Adults involved with some kind of work appear better able to cope than those with little to do. The local adults we met mostly wanted to talk about that day, but not all. Many showed signs of shock still, even those such as Seemi who seemed to be coping best.
2. Many local NGOs have started schools in camps and villages. However, they have little experience of education, and most have no experience at all of education in emergencies. Any work Ockenden does on teacher training should include inviting as many people as possible to the training, not just teachers from Ockenden schools. This should increase the overall standard of teaching.
3. Ockenden should also be able to assist such schools with accessing materials free from UNICEF.
4. Ockenden is going to need a big network of community mobilisers to achieve this, and also lots of ability to get around. These should be recruited from those affected wherever possible. However, Ockenden will need to use our existing trainers and mobilisers to at least start the process to ensure quality, as even before the earthquake there seem to be few qualified teachers.
5. 'Build back better' will be vital, and the opportunity should be taken to improve the local school systems: more schools, more teachers, better teachers and more materials are all required. Where possible, these should be absorbed into the government network. This is going to require a lot of advocacy; however, the schools are unlikely to be sustainable any other way. Community schools are the other option, but this is not ideal as then the children will have to pay to attend.
6. Field coordination with other NGOs is also vital. Making the most of available skills and materials, such as tents, is sensible. Also, if Ockenden is to invite teachers to training courses without giving offence, a lot of local negotiation will be necessary.
7. A thorough needs assessment will be a necessary first step, as many of the villages we have listed we have not actually visited! Some may not need Ockenden schools, some may be too small for a school of their own and teachers will need to be identified in all. Also, we still need to identify the Kashmir villages, although Seemi did list one.
8. Although we are late to the scene, no INGOs have started education on a large scale. This appears to be because of the lack of donor funds -- Save the Children US currently has the biggest network of schools and this is only six! Most schools are being set up with private donations locally or through religious organisations. Once donor money becomes available, there will be a rush to do schools as many are waiting. Not many organisations seem to be willing to be UNICEF IPs.
9. There are some Afghan refugees caught up in this, and some long-term displaced people from Kashmir. However, these have mostly been treated in the same way as the affected Pakistani community, so it is hard to tell which is which. There are probably not enough to do a whole project just for either of these groups. There is a lot of local displacement of the Pakistani community, however, and there will be more unless services start to reach people in a more systematic manner.
10. The district education department is much in need of capacity building. Where possible, this should be included in the training. This will facilitate Ockenden's work, as otherwise they are likely to be frustrating to work with. Coordination with them is vital if they are going to take over the schools.