By Filza Nasir
Razia, residing in village Hafiz Ali Detho of Union Council Palli Jani, District Matiari, is looked upon as a guide by the locals. She is the manager of her community organisation (CO) Hafiz Ali Detho-1, while her daughter who has done her intermediary education is the bookkeeper for the CO.
Having previously worked with NRSP Bank on a microfinance project, Razia has built trust with the organisation as well as with the people of the community. She helped NRSP in CO formation in her village. She narrates that a year ago there was a fraud in the entire district of Matiari, where a few people pretending to work for an NGO, sold a scam card for Rs. 500 per member of the households in the false promises of a return of Rs. 50,000 in a few months. People, desperate to increase their incomes, bought number of cards, only to be scammed later. The village thus, became suspicious towards any outsider coming in to their village for development work.
However, when NRSP came to their village for SUCCESS Programme, they approached Razia and she was able to convince the people of the organisation’s authenticity.
There are various social issues in the village, including no school for girls, lack of health facilities, but her main focus is to work for education in her village and fix the old teaching methods.
Razia wants her daughter to study further, and her daughter says she aspires to be a teacher. Razia believes that through the SUCCESS Programme, and various trainings, the villagers will learn a lot, and will be able to improve their living conditions.