"The Umeed Partnership, a charity registered in Pakistan and the UK, supports a project which offers opportunities for empowerment of women in the male-dominated tribal communities of western Baluchistan, adjacent to Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Umeed is the Urdu word for hope.
Yousuf Gill worked as a Catholic parish priest in the vast Baluchistan parish during the 1990s. He became increasingly aware that the women of this region received almost no education. This meant that the human potential of 50 per cent of the population was unrealised - in Yousuf's eyes a tragic waste of talent.
I met Yousuf in 2000 when he had completed a Master's course in development studies in Dublin, and invited him to meet various people in Bangor University and beyond. He resolved to return to Pakistan and apply his energies and recently-acquired skills to providing basic education and skills training for girls and women of all cultures and faiths (that is, Christian, Hindu and Muslim).
With the support of members of the Umeed Partnership in Anglesey, during 2000-2003 Yousuf established 15 education centres based in homesteads centred on the city of Loralai in the heart of the Pashtun tribal area of Baluchistan. In this sparsely-populated region, women are restricted to their homes throughout their lives, and have few opportunities to engage with women of other cultures and faiths.
With Yousuf's persuasion, the men in these communities have permitted their daughters, sisters and wives to attend the centres on a daily basis and to receive a grounding in Urdu, arithmetic and English. More recently, vocational skills have been introduced with the aim of enabling women to achieve a small measure of independence through earnings from selling their products.
A programme of embroidery training has been completed amongst women in Loralai (with financial support from an Irish aid agency) who now produce embroidered items of clothing such as shalwar kameez, shirts, bridal wear, nightwear, scarves and shawls. A further programme of life-skills training is planned, to include diet and nutrition, family health promotion/disease prevention and tailoring.
In June 2004 Yousuf Gill returned to the UK to raise the profile of the project amongst academic staff at Bangor; also to individuals within the Church in Wales and elsewhere in north Wales. He has also introduced the embroidered products to Just Shopping, a Fair Trade shop in Bangor Road, Conwy, and to the Pakistani business community in Birmingham, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire. The women are beginning to see the fruits of their modest education and training. They are engaging socially for the first time in their lives (with the approval of their husbands, fathers and brothers) and are using their skills to achieve greater dignity and a modest level of independence.
It was never the intention of Yousuf to change the dynamic of society in the tribal areas (and indeed it would have been dangerous to do so), but simply to offer opportunities to women through education. In this respect he is succeeding in realising his vision.
The charity's new committee in north Wales is represented by Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Christian members, and the vice-chair, secretary and treasurer are women; so, it's a case of women in Wales supporting women in Pakistan.
The members in Bangor are at present giving thought to producing a website and publicity materials. I shall be visiting the project in Baluchistan at the end of November."
Pictures from Pakistan.
Bangor student takes her skills to Pakistan.
