I don’t mean to gorge myself on my breakfast — it’s just so good! Butter-topped saag, made from the leaves of the mustard plant, served with a flaky flatbread called paratha and yogurt-based drink lassi in the serenity of Thatta Ghulamka Dheeroka. At my friend and broadcaster Amjad Ali’s village house, this hearty meal has made me drowsy, and so, to keep myself awake for a walk around the homestead, I have a cup of tea.

This sleepy hamlet in the southwestern district of Okara has always been there but without electricity, public health, safe water and education. But this was all to change with the catalyst being Dr Senta Maria Siller — a woman from Germany, the country with which Pakistan has had close and diverse relations since 1951.

But even before that, people of this region have been familiar with Germany through the person and poetry of Pakistan’s national poet, Allama Muhammad Iqbal. Then for her inspirational work on Islam, sufism and mysticism and Allama Iqbal, German scholar and a frequent visitor to Pakistan, Dr Annemarie Schimmel (April 7, 1922 - January 26, 2003) was awarded Hilal-i-Imtiaz by the government of Pakistan. Dr Ruth Katherina Martha Pfau (September 9, 1929 – August 10, 2017), was known in Pakistan as the Leprosy Lady for spending more than half of her life helping leprosy patients in Pakistan. Pakistan conferred Sitara-i-Quaid-i-Azam upon her to recognise her selfless work.

Now it’s Dr Siller I am being introduced to by Amjad Ali, who first knew her as a teacher at the prestigious applied arts institution Lette Verein in the German capital, Berlin, some 37 years ago.

“Always wearing a smile, Dr Siller taught us Roman calligraphy and screen printing,” reminisces Ali, who graduated in graphic design in 1987 before joining Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany’s international public broadcaster, then based in the city of Cologne. It was this colourful city Dr Siller lived in along with her spouse Dr Norbert Pintsch, who taught Ali history of arts and geometry.

“Dr Siller always wanted to know more and talk about Pakistan, my country of birth,” says Ali. “Her anxiousness about Pakistan stemmed from the several years she had spent in Pakistan in the 1960s. She had then lived in Lahore, Gujranwala and Sialkot. She had worked for the Battelle Institute. As a designer, Santa Siller also designed a garden in Sialkot and helped the wooden toy industry improve toy designs.”

In 1990, Ali was at his parents in Lahore on his annual leave when Dr Siller and Dr Pintsch paid a surprise visit.

“Dr Siller fancied seeing my hamlet, the place I had so passionately talked about in Germany. I took my guests to my village. Dr Siller was moved by the embroidery skills of village craftswomen and artisans and Dr Pintsch by the architectural marvel of the hamlet, its mud houses and other structures,” says Ali.

The visit paved the way for an innovative developmental project that was to transform the hamlet.

Between 1993 and 1998, Dr Siller spent about ten months a year in the village.

“There was no electricity, no access to clean drinking water, no sanitation facilities and no macadamised road leading up to the village. But this did not deter Dr Siller.”

She set up a Women Art Centre as a place for women and girls in the village to produce high-quality handicrafts, which would then be sold in the big cities across Pakistan and abroad. She wanted to transform people’s lives. And that she did.

She started from scratch and made her project a success. Thanks to the efforts of Santa Siller, a solar power unit was installed at the handicraft centre in collaboration with the German and Japanese governments, one of the earliest units to be installed in rural Pakistan.

Dr Siller also made efforts for clean water supply in the village. With financial support from the Lions Club and several other organisations, a 406-foot-deep well was bored in the village. The water was tested at laboratories in Islamabad and Okara and found suitable for drinking.

She inspired women and girls to dream big and then helped them realise their dreams. The village girls began earning their livelihood while working from home. In some cases, the village girls made more money than their male relatives.

“To inculcate in the village women the importance of wearing shoes, she made it mandatory for the dolls to wear shoes,” says Farzana Zahoor, the in charge of the Centre.

Dr Siller taught women to keep themselves clean and hygiene conscious. She called in from Germany her daughter, Dr Leila Masson, who was born in a hospital in the city of Lahore in 1966. She founded a dispensary and stayed in the village for three months treating village women and men in the early 1992.

She would help the girls and women get rid of the lice that infested in their heads because of unhygienic habits.

For years, stationery and books were provided free to village school children by the Crafts Centre. The school’s first building was built in 1992 with donations from Germany.

Dr Siller’s long stays in Pakistan enabled her to travel to different parts of the country, as far as Kafiristan, where she closely studied and documented the costumes and ornaments of the Kalash tribe. She then developed a new brand, Thatta Kedona, which is now producing not only the best ethnic dolls of Pakistan but also many colourful handicraft products including finger puppets, greeting cards and bracelets.

The villagers have renamed the Women Art Centre (WAC) as Senta Siller Art Centre (SSAC). Dr Silller, turning 86 on November 17, is lovingly called the Mother of Dolls.

Having recognised the services of Annemarie Schimmel and Dr Ruth Pfau, Pakistan owes Dr Senta Maria Anna Siller recognition for her work that has changed the way women in this Pakistani village lived and worked. Braving all odds, she has made them hygiene-conscious and empowered them economically. To top it all, birth of a child in this village is celebrated by planting a tree.

The writer is a print, broadcast and online

journalist associated with Jang Group of

Newspapers as Editor, Special Assignments

Dr Senta Siller – a citation

Born on November 17, 1935, in Vienna, Senta Maria Anna Siller née Zmavc is a German designer, calligrapher, entrepreneur, organiser and project initiator.

She studied graphic design at the State University of Fine Arts (today Berlin University of the Arts). She did her MA in archaeology, philosophy and education and received a doctorate in the history of arts from the Technical University of Berlin. She served as a lecturer and later as deputy head of an Art School in Berlin.

She earned her first money with silhouettes and illustrations, which along with design, became her passion for life. She continued various activities as a designer (for exhibitions and fairs, children’s clothes, toys and book illustrations) and ran a textile company before she came to Pakistan for the first time in 1965.

After leaving her civil service and design consultancy, Dr Senta Siller became an honorary manager of the Thatta Kedona, a self-help project in the Pakistani village Thatta Ghulamka Dheeroka in 1993, which was replicated in Cameroon (in 1998) and in Colombia (in 1999). It is from Pakistan that she has networked with other projects in different countries. Around 1995, Dr Siller played a key role in helping a welfare organization, Behbood, establish itself in Islamabad in collaboration with the German foundation Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Dr Senta Siller has organised more than 500 exhibitions, shows and events for income generation for women in rural areas. Since 1991, Dr Siller has voluntarily promoted self-help projects that enable women to earn an independent income. Residents learnt from her to make exportable dolls in the traditional costumes of the local ethnic groups. A special feature of these projects is the altruism of the foreign volunteers involved.

Dr Senta Siller has been conferred several awards such as Floriade (the Netherlands), Gestaltetes Spielgut (Creative Toys-German Toy Industry), Bundesverdienstkreuz (highest civil order of merit of the Federal Republic of Germany), IWSA Silver Medal, Izmir, Turkey, UNESCO Award, Seal of Excellence, Islamabad, Pakistan and TriPlex-Decoration in Cameroon for project work.

One hopes Pakistan recognises her relentless and untiring work in income generation for rural women through self-help projects.