HANDS Glorious History
HANDS journey of evolution started in 1979 when Prof. A.G. Billoo - Founder Chairman of
HANDS and his colleagues went beyond the boundaries of the public sector hospital to
witness the problems of people of the remote rural areas.. They realized the pathetic
condition of the community, especially women and children, deprived of all the basic
facilities - health, education and basic civic facilities. They formed a voluntary group and
started working in a village 45 km away from their hospital (Civil Hospital Karachi)
with a clear vision of improving living conditions of the inhabitants of rural areas
especially health (as per WHO's criteria, mentioned in Alma Ata Declaration). This
initiation of activities was from the platform of "Health and Nutrition Project". Thereafter a
unique primary health care system was developed with community participation in rural
Karachi. A few comparatively educated and committed boys and girls from the village
were provided training to form a volunteer group called Community Based Organization
(CBO). People started observing a change within few years and the results of the
program were enough to open the eyes of nearby villagers. The development of the
organization is divided in following five phases:
1. Philanthropist phase-1979 to 1993
HANDS initially worked without formal donors and the main funding source was the
philanthropists. The first PHC center was established at Memon Goth in 1980 and then
this volunteer group moved to other villages and in 1982, two more PHC centers were
established at Dur Muhammad Village and Saleh Muhammad Village and by the end of
1992 HANDS started taking shape of a formal organization.
2. Formal Organization Phase - 1993 to 1995
This was the period when HANDS got itself formally
registered and received its first formal project and
established its office in Karachi. The vision of organization
was defined as “Healthy Educated & Prosperous Pakistan”
and the mission was “to promote basic health, primary
education,
income
generation
opportunities
and
development of institutions to empower the underprivileged
communities”.
The first formal donor funded project was ”Development of
Health Structure (DEH)” funded by the Trust for Voluntary
Organization - TVO. The target population of the project was
24 villages of Karachi rural and its initial duration was 3
years and with this project HANDS annual budget reached
to Rs. 03 million and program interventions extended from
03 to 24 villages.
3. HANDS Expanded Program Phase - 1995 to 1997
HANDS first time entered in the education sector through Participatory Development Program
(PDP) under Social Action Program (SAP) of Government of Pakistan, funded for the promotion
of health and education. First regional office was established at Hala to implement this project.
In 1996 organization had attained 02 regular offices and 05 projects with an annual budget of 07
million rupees.
4. Integrated rural development Phase 1998 - 2006
Several donors approached and funded HANDS in this phase as the organization gradually
gained momentum through its activities/interventions. At this stage the organization went in to
an agreement with City District Government to adopt the secondary health care facility at village
Jamkanda District Malir (Now Bin Qasim Town). A second office in Karachi rural was established
and overall 03 offices became functional. HANDS expanded its programs from Health and
Education sector to Water & Sanitation, Micro Credit, Gender & Development, and secondary
care facilities. The services of the organization scaled upto upper Sindh and lower Punjab after
agreeing to do a project of capacity building on Family planning in partnership with Key Social
Marketing. The areas included Sukkur, Ghotki, Dadu, Umerkot, Mithi, Sadiqabad, Raheem yar
khan, Khanpur etc. With this extension 05 more regular offices were established and altogether
there were 08 offices. HANDS reached to total 15 projects with annual budget of Rs. 40 million
by June 2006.
5. Horizontal Growth Phase 2007 - 2011
This was the rapid organization development phase. HANDS after signing FALAH a 05
years duration reproductive health project funded by Population Council and USAID,
added to the organizational net work of offices. The organization extended its offices
from Sindh province, to Punjab province, Federal Capital Islamabad and Balochistan
province. There were overall nine district offices in Sindh and 03 towns of Karachi
which included, Shikarpur, Jaccobabad, Ghotki, Larkana, and Jafferabd and Quetta
(Balochistan). Packard Foundation funded an initial 03 years project MARVI which was
implemented in district Umerkot. HANDS after 33 years has developed into one of the
largest Non Profit Organization of the country and depicts an excellent model of
community development. This integrated model comprise of key programs of Health
Promotion, Education & Literacy, Livelihood Enhancement, Social Mobilization,
Disaster Management, Gender & Development, Human Resource & Institutional
Development, Infrastructure Development Energy Water & Shelter, Information
Communication Resource and Advocacy, Monitoring Evaluation & Research and Social
Marketing.
HANDS played a major role for relief, early recovery and rehabilitation through
TAMEER strategy in post flood 2010 period. The flood experience further strengthened
the organization. Disaster Management program emerged as one of the lead program
of the organization. HANDS later developed the Community Based Disaster Risk
Reduction (CBDRR) strategy. Medico International (German organization), all the UN
agencies and DFID (UKAID) were the key partners in flood related projects. Under the
CBDRR strategy 02 District Disaster Risk Reduction centers were constructed at Thatta
for southern Sindh and at Sukkur for Northern Sindh. In addition to these 08 more
District Disaster Risk Reduction Centers are in process of construction. HANDS
contribution to the disaster affected population was more than Rs. 05 billions in cash
& kind in 2010 - 2012.
HANDS Alhumdulillah has now a network of 29 offices across the country and has
access to more than 25 million population of nearly 42000 villages in 29 districts.
These offices are supported by 3531 medium and small size organizations network in
03 provinces that is Punjab, Sindh, and Balochistan. The number of projects managed
by the organization has gone upto 94 projects, with the annual turnover of 4696
million in cash & kin. It has directly benefited more than 4.2 million population in
2011-12.
6. Institutionalization Phase 2012 onward and vision 2020
HANDS has developed its long term strategy 2020, through a detail consultation
process which involved community based volunteers, all levels of professional staff
and the volunteers of governing board. HANDS 2020 strategy reflects the planning and
future commitment of the organization. The organization has planned to scale it's
intervention horizontally to 138,000 villages, 75 districts, 69 million population and
vertically to a university of Community Development supported by 40 Institutes of
Community Development. This process brought not only strategic changes in the
organization but has also broadened the vision and mission.