2-year-old Muhammad Afhan has seen more suffering in his short time on Earth than anyone should witness in a lifetime. His village, Mori, in Pakistan’s Chitral district, was hit by devastating floods this summer. Houses were buried under thick layers of mud, drinking water pipes were destroyed and swept away. You can help him and his community get back on their feet!
Mori is one the communities in Pakistan that we partner with to protect snow leopards. As part of a livestock vaccination program, the people of Mori have agreed to keep the cats in their area and their wild prey species save.
But since the floods hit, nothing is the same anymore in Mori. Muhammad’s father just points at the debris around him, words failing to describe the destruction.
Khawaja Aman Ullah, the head of the local conservation committee, explains that dozens of people lost their homes. “They were just flattened and taken away by the water and the mud.”
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Please help the flood-affected communities in Pakistan rebuild their lives with a donation now!
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The disaster also destroyed the village’s supply of drinking water – a system of pipes leading to a reservoir. “Many of our conservation partner communities in this area have suffered the same devastation”, says Kashif Syed of the Snow Leopard Foundation Pakistan, who visited Chitral to assess the damage in August. “People here are eager to rebuild, but they need help to do so. They’ve lost everything.”
New water pipes and building supplies to restore homes are at the top of the list of priorities – and with good reason! Clean fresh water is essential for people’s health as well as for their livelihood. Livestock no longer have enough to drink, and orchards can’t be irrigated, leading to further suffering.
As a conservation organization, we don’t usually get involved in humanitarian relief efforts, but the sheer scale of devastation and suffering in these snow leopard conservation partner communities is just too large to ignore.
We’ve partnered with these people to protect snow leopards for many years, and today, they need our help. We won’t be able to help everyone, but we can at least help those we know with their most urgent needs.
The Afghan family and their neighbors have been working hard since the flood to restore infrastructure, but they lack the funds to purchase the necessary water pipes and construction materials to restore their fresh water supply, their homes, their lives.
You can help!
Please go to our fundraising campaign for Pakistan’s flood victims and make a contribution if you can: https://www.razoo.com/story/Help-Restore-Drinking-Water-To-Pakistan-S-Snow-Leopard-Conservation-Communities.
For instance, $15 can purchase 100 feet of water pipe in Pakistan. $80 can buy 10 lightweight plywood board to rapidly rebuild houses. With $200, we can restore Mori’s drinking water.
$10,000 could go a long way toward meeting some of the most urgent needs in our partner communities, so please give what you can to help us meet this goal. Thank you!
There are plenty of civil engineers, carpenters and skilled laborers in these communities, so they will be able to purchase the materials they need quickly and get to work immediately.
The Snow Leopard Trust has worked with the people of Mori, and more than a dozen other villages across Northern Pakistan for almost a decade, partnering with them to protect the endangered snow leopards in the area.
This recent disaster has not only brought suffering and misery to our partners and friends, it also threatens to set back conservation efforts by years, as basic survival has become local resident’s only concern.
With this in mind, we’re asking you to please help young Muhammad Afhan and our partner communities in this time of need – both for people and wildlife.