CEO's Message
Dear stakeholders,
As CEO of Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre, it gives me immense pleasure to present this Annual Report for the year 2010.
MALC has been taking rapid strides towards elimination of Leprosy and the targets being achieved in most of the provinces. However, unlike diseases like Leprosy cannot be totally eradicated due to nature of its spread and its extremely long incubation period which can be in rare cases even upto 40 years. Hence, the Leprosy Control Programme has to be sustained for a minimum of another 3 to 4 decades.
The organization has also undertaken TB and Blindness control alongwith Community Development in the Leprosy affected areas. We are learning about new issues in the development sector with a focus on health and education at community level. We are aware of the limitations of our resources. We are using our resources and the expertise of our staff to the utmost, in a targeted manner to have the maximum possible impact on people's lives.
2010, has been a year where we have again strived hard to serve the needs of our community. The year has seen an enormous misery countrywide. The worst floods in 80 years killed over 1,800 people, displaced over 20 million people, washed away ready-crops and destroyed hundreds and thousands of houses. MALC with support of International and local friends took active part not only in the relief work throughout the country, providing food and temporary shelters but also launched reconstruction and socio-economic rehabilitation in the flood affected areas. Construction is in full swing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with a planned target of constructing 250 houses while in Sindh priority was given to agricultural rehabilitation and 335 of the most affected farmer families have been supported with seeds, fertilizers and agricultural equipment, including repairs of tube-wells with reconstruction and socio-economic interventions to follow for another 250 families.
The year 2011 will continue focusing on rehabilitation of people affected by massive floods without jeopardizing the core activity of Leprosy elimination and the next five years will offer opportunity to concentrate more on Community Development to have an impact on the health, education and social uplift of marginalized groups.
None of the achievements in this year and in the past could have happened without the support of our long-standing International funding partners like GLRA and others, and local friends in Pakistan. The most exciting thing about all the work we're doing together with our partners is the tangible difference we make in the lives by serving the unserved. I would like to thank all our friends and well-wishers for their continued support to our projects.
I look forward to another exciting and rewarding year ahead.
Sincerely,
Shakil Ahmad
CEO, MALC
