Village Arab Solangi is located at a short distance of 30 kilometres from district headquarter of Khairpur and houses a few hundred households of Solangis. In 1992, torrential rains totally devastated this village and ruined inhabitants’ means of livelihood. As the agricultural land around the village was slightly elevated, the rainwater rushed into the village damaging whatever came in its way. Most of the mud houses of the poor villagers were swept away and only a few could hold ground. The stagnant water spread water-borne diseases and naturally the women and the children suffered the most due to this. The villagers were in a state of utter shock and had no idea of where to turn to for support or relief.

Seeing this, a few organisations undertook some relief work but it was directed towards men only. The women, who were also victims of the damage brought by these torrential rains and the diseases in their aftermath, were excluded, obviously due to gender apathy and the neglected status of women in the society.

It was at this time of need that they found a saviour in the form of Ghulam Sughra Solangi, a young and dynamic girl who wanted to bring a positive change in the lives of women in her village and beyond. Though short of resources, she with the support of another woman Diba organised a women's group to pool for a fund with a meagre share of Rs 10 per person. Soon both of them were able to collect Rs 500 which they decided to lend to a woman so that she could start a grocery shop. Likewise, they managed more money for disbursement among women and also circulated money recovered from beneficiaries to more women for the same purpose.

This is just one glimpse from the life of Sughra, which she has dedicated to the cause of ameliorating the condition of the downtrodden and vulnerable communities in the society, especially the women. Sughra, an exceptional example of resilience and courage, has emerged as an example of how an oppressed woman can achieve success through sheer determination and strength. From a young girl married at 12 against her will and then deserted by her husband, she struggled against all odds and became a custodian of women’s rights. Today, she heads the organisation Marvi Rural Development Organisation (MRDO) as its Chief Executive Officer. The organisation founded by her in 1994 has a footprint in all the provinces of the country and is recognised around the globe for its meritorious work. The areas covered include but are not limited to women empowerment, gender development, education and health, emergency response, peace and interfaith harmony, legal aid and legal empowerment and inclusion of persons with disabilities.

Talking to the scribe, Sughra tells, “During my childhood years, I wanted to seek education but could not because girls were not allowed to come out from the house and attend a school.” She got married at the age of 12 and was abandoned by her husband at 20, declaring her unattractive and illiterate. She says, “At that time, I had nothing to do but to take care of my two young children. After moving back home with my parents, I felt rejected and humiliated and almost suicidal but I kept going.”

Sughra had always nurtured a desire to study. When she was a child she would take lunch to her father who was a school teacher. She would see the boys studying and wished she could do the same. After her divorce, she expressed the desire to study but was beaten up by her brothers, who suspected that she would run away with a man if allowed to go outside to study. However, she committed to her goal and within four years she passed the matriculation exam. To support her children and herself, she did embroidery work until late in the evening starting early morning. “Although, people ridiculed and humiliated me when I started studying, but I didn’t lose heart. I said to myself and my family that if I want to be on my own and I must get an education. In 1989, I became a teacher at a girls’ primary school in my village,” she adds.

From here, her journey of success started which she attributes to the women beneficiaries of the projects run by MRDO. She became the first Pakistani woman to win Ashoka Fellowship in 1999 and in 2011 she received the International Women of Courage Award from the former-US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton and former First Lady Michelle Obama.

Born out of a culture of poverty and repression, Sughra has come to believe that until physical development (e.g. roads, electricity, water supply, and schools) is accompanied by an attitude change, the quality of life for women will remain unchanged. She believes the motivation behind her work for women is solely because of her bitter past. “I feel one can only understand the bitterness and harshness of life if he or she has experienced something like that themselves. I belong to the same culture where women have been victimised for ages based on ancient traditions of karo kari, early and forced marriages, watta satta, gender-based violence, sexual exploitation at the hands of feudal lords and modern forms of slavery. There are other miseries as well which are often left unreported and unnoticed. I think that is the intrinsic driving force behind my work,” she shares.

Salman Ali, Programme Manager at MRDO points out that their team tries to think out of the box under the guidance of their CEO and executes projects that are beneficial for the targeted groups. For example, he says, “It was MRDO that went for the formation of a district women support group a couple of years ago. This project was called ‘Strengthening District Bar Associations and setting up Facilitation Kiosks in District Court’ in the district Sukkur and was carried out in collaboration with the District Bar Association under Gender Equity Programme (GEP) of Aurat Foundation supported by USAID. The project was aimed at sensitising the lawyers in gender friendly legal practices and consolidating pro-women judicial precedents and regressive court precedents for comparative trend analysis. The initiative also facilitated information dissemination through establishing a facilitation kiosk for women seeking legal assistance in the District Court Sukkur.”

After taking up the role of school teacher at a newly established school for girls, Sughra observed there were no girl students to teach, as parents were not motivated to send their daughters to school. She realised that the opposition to female education sprang as much from poverty as from the social customs so she focused her attention towards economic empowerment of women. She, therefore, introduced income generating work and secured sources of credit so that women could achieve the role of bread earners for the family and can take the decision to send their girls to school. During this journey, MRDO got support from global donors who were inspired by the profile, struggle and clarity of vision of its CEO. The beneficiaries sought and secured capacity-building trainings and support from the PPAF, ILO and OXFAM to establish sources of micro credit. The women were introduced to raise cultivation business as well.

While the organisation is serving women on such great level, it has challenged social taboos and tried to empower women in the real sense. The women under these projects were made to explore un-treaded territories and reduce economic dependence on men which is a key to the solution of the problems they mostly face.

A success story that can be shared is about the ‘Workforce Development for Sustainable Livelihoods Project’ implemented in District Jacobabad with the support of USAID (Small Grants and Ambassador's Fund Programme (SGAFP)-National Rural Support Programme (NRSP). Under this programme, 350 girls from impoverished areas were imparted skills in order to enable them to generate income for themselves and for their families. Despite their low academic background (only 50 per cent had passed Grade 8), the participants of tailoring training under the project turned out to be very hardworking and focused to learn. Every day, they worked for six hours, sometimes for even longer. Most of them learnt skills of making umbrella frock, bead frock, traditional bed sheets by needle-work, and embroidery work around the neck of frocks and shirts in a short span of time (60 days), which is an amazing progress.

Another success story

The life of Ajna, wife of Ali Khan Solangi a resident of Village Arab Solangi, also changed after she became a member of the Community Based Organisation (CBO) formed in the village with the support of MRDO-the native village of Sughra. Earlier, her source of income was working as a labourer during harvest season and cotton picking season and most of the year she remained idle. She did not have any work to do on a daily basis or any savings to cover expenses during periods of unemployment. After CBO formation, the members came to know about how and why to save. The CBO received support of agricultural inputs (wheat seed and fertilisers) from MRDO which helped its members improve the quality and yield of their crops and therefore income.

“Before joining the CBO, women had no awareness about the importance of women's role in family structure and men made all decisions. Girls’ education was never a consideration due to abject poverty. After the formation of CBO, we discovered much about our surrounding environment. We soon realised the importance of things we earlier thought of as useless. Now we better care for ourselves, our children and family. We care for our health and hygiene as well as our family. More importantly, we now save from whatever limited resources are available,” Ajna shares.