Dear Colleagues

re. winter misery of earthquake affected victims-what to do now?

It is not impossible to imagine how cold and miserable life is for earthquake affected victims in Kashmir and Hazara district. after the earth quake's devastation, losing loved ones, livelihoods and communities, they were in the ongoing misery of trying to struggle for respectable existence. now, nature has dealt them a worse blow: cold and snowy winter, with rains. you have seen images of freezing children and people, struggling to survive. it is heart wrenching.

We are a psychiatrists' association and given priority to matters psychological. we can and need to contrubute to the mental well-being of victims. ETRI is the new service we are settting up in Pakistan. But, lives need to be saved and families protected physically before we are able to deal with psychological challenges. this was what we learnt and experienced while we were in Pakistan, in December 2005. we had pledged that we would split all our EQ related funds: for physical assistance and psychological our project.

As a result, we have ordered today, the construction of 70 snow proof, rain proof shelters, in Neelam Valley and Bagh.
these would protect at least 70 families from winter and rain, for the foreseeable future. our resources are meagre. we have only small amount of funds.

Now, it is time to act again. i request you to dig deep into your pockets and empathising with the plight of these helpless victims, needing shelter and assistance, please send £50 each, at least, for building of these shelters.

Details of these and their costs would be communicated to you by mateen durrani, secretary BPPA, today.

Act now, save lives of struggling victims of this killer winter and earthquake.

Send cheques to BPPA or deposit in the BPPA EQ account, details are on the website.

Donate generously, this is that time, again. we always knew that it is a long term commitment.

Sincerely

Akmal Makhdum
Ex-Chairman BPPA