Buner & Swat Refugees Need Our Help

Buner Refguee Relief Camp

In 2005 at Stanford University, we started a Tele-health initiative for rural Pakistan. Today, By the Grace of God, we are successfully running our services on a regular basis in rural Mardan District of Pakistan (in the village of Zahidabad, NWFP 200KM North of Islamabad) at our medical facility. We have now treated close to 15,000 patients since September 2008 off which 50% are female patients.

You can see some media/videos of our efforts at : http://www.umtrust.org/media

Apparently, our hospital in Zahidabad is located at the border of Buner District and therefore, we have seen a huge influx of refugees in our area these past few weeks. In fact, we have estimated close to 100,000 refugees in a 10KM radius of our facility. The conflict has caused over 1.5 million refugees in the province of NWFP (North West Frontier Province) of Pakistan.

As a response to this crisis, UM Healthcare Trust, our non-profit, in collaboration with its stakeholders (NUST, APPNA among others) has launched a massive healthcare relief effort for the refugees streaming in from the Buner & Swat district.

A photo stream of our efforts can be seen here at

http://picasaweb.google.com/mumtaz.atif/BunerRefugees

The project is a joint collaboration between

• UM Healthcare Trust (http://www.umtrust.org),
• NUST (http://www.seecs.edu.pk), and
• APPNA (http://www.appna.org) and

is partially supported by grants from

• USAID (http://www.usaid.gov),
• ISIF (http://www.isif.asia) and
• Ordinary people like you and me.

In this hour of the need for refugees we need your support as we are running short on medical supplies. No international non-profit is operating in our area and thus our limited resources are under a lot of stress.

Please contribute generously at http://www.umtrust.org/donate

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How would you like to spend your Eid-ul-Adha

First read this blog

http://blogs.tele-healthcare.org/2008/09/plight-of-refugees-in-northern-pakistan.html

There are thousands of displaced individuals in Pakistan. Be it in Baluchistan, the victims of the recent earthquake, or Bajaur/Swat refugees who were forced out of their homes by incessant bombings by US drones and Pakistan military. This Eid please remember the people who are suffering across the country.

Eid-ul-Adha

This Eid share your qurbanis and good moments with these poor suffering souls. These people need your attention and care. The winters are fast approaching and they still do not have warm clothings. The shelters are flimsy tents which cannot keep them warm in winters. There is no kitchen to feed them on a regular basis.

So think hard and see what you can do to bring a smile on their faces.