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 phase1979 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.