Manghopir Development Programme (MDP)
The Manghopir Development Programme (MDP) was started by Sr. Jeannine Geuns in 1990 in the outskirts of Karachi, for the support of Leprosy-affected families. The Project is currently running the following programs:
1. Tatarko Yagangat School
830 children attend the Tatarko Yagangat School (TYS) in Manghopir, which runs both a morning and an afternoon shift, and offers education from the kindergarten, primary and secondary school levels (Science) to adult education. The students are predominantly from poor homes, with a small number from middle class families. 38 percent of them are from Leprosy-affected families.
The Manghopir Development Programme is also operating the St. Joseph’s school, a smaller school close by, with 140 children in the kindergarten and primary sections.
2. The Girls Hostel
The Girls Hostel in Manghopir provides boarding for 80 young girls who come from social problems or families from far-flung areas for education. It also houses occasionally children from broken homes as well as those abandoned by their families.
3. Youth House
The Manghopir Development Programme offers to youngsters and other groups the opportunity to stay in the Youth House. Equipped with all the necessary facilities (conference rooms, dinning halls), the house can provide board and lodging for up to 40 persons at affordable prices. Today the hostel serves as a centre for workshops and retreats and leadership training.
4. Women’s Wing
The Women’s Wing works on Women development by awareness sessions and counseling.
Among the target group, it is conducting workshops for young girls, and has formed committees for married women, and for micro-credit groups.
Topics are women’s right, family health, reproductive health, nutrition, child welfare, domestic violence, family budget and management of family income; it is campaigning against child marriages among the Hindu Community, and is providing legal assistance by networking in human right cases.
5. Leather Workshop
The Leather Workshop was founded to provide an income for women from the Bihari refugee families affected by Leprosy or Tuberculosis. Today, 13 women are earning to support their families through their work, producing leather goods such as ladies bags, purses, rucksacks and toilet bags which are marketed locally and abroad.
6. Embroidery and Sewing Centre
140 women from Leprosy-affected families manage to supplement the family income at the Embroidery and Sewing Centre by embroidering tablecloths, towels, napkins, bags and aprons among other things, which are sold in Karachi and mainly in Europe.
The Sewing Centre serves as a training centre to which girls from the hostel also contribute by stitching together embroidered pieces or sewing school uniforms to generate money for their school fees.
7. Afghan Refugee Programme
Afghan Refugee Programme has been dealing with socio-medical problem cases among the Afghan Refugees, which made it impossible for the families to return: severe sickness for which treatment facilities do not exist in Afghanistan, and debts are being the main reasons.
So far, 1590 families have been facilitated and ultimately repatriated; 317 are still in need of assistance.
A school with 180 children (42 of them girls) has been opened in the camp where no Government help has reached, and no NGO is engaged.
Rah-e-Najat "ReN"
Rah-e-Najat is an autonomous NGO, an off spring of MALC, a remarkable community development programme in Adamgoth off National Highway.
It is targeting the Hindu families settled formerly at the Lyari River garbage belt, and resettled on Gotabad Scheme plots.
Run away haris, it has taken years of patient listening and awareness efforts to bring the community to the present state of self-reliance. A primary school, health post, sewing centre, regular community meetings, women’s committees, micro-credit groups, and in the last years labour opportunities in the nearby vegetable market have largely transformed the community. Though regular monitoring and accompaniment are still required.
Construction of their temple with their own resources is one of the hopeful signs that the people are discovering and accepting their own identity.
It is hoped that other Hindu and marginal communities are helped as well by this model, a second community (Khamisa goth) is presently in the first stage of the development (community awareness and community building)
