Nestled in the snow
capped valleys of the Jhelum River, 42 kilometres from
Muzzafarabad, Hattian Tehsil, a small tehsil of the Muzzafarabad
District, was once home to 166,000 people, divided into 24,067
households (based on an average of seven people per household).
Most of these people lived in small, scattered rural settlements
(94%), while a small portion (6.4%) lived in relatively
urbanised areas.
Deriving their income from farming and trading, the people of
Hattian Tehsil inhabited a world of mountain slopes on which they
built their homes, the majority made of mud and straw (54%), some of
concrete (23%) and an equal number of semi-concrete structures
reinforced with mud, bricks and stones.
Evidence suggests that Hattian Tehsil, before the 2005 earthquake,
had evolved a gender balanced society, with good indicators in terms
of female mortality (51% men and 49% women), a ratio of 100 females
for every 103 males. Significantly, this was a very young
population.
Young women of marriageable and child bearing age (19-29)
constituted 10% of the population, while men of the same age made up
8%. There were 26,721 infants (16%), almost equally divided into
boys and girls. The number of infants coupled with relatively
favourable indicators of female mortality vis ā vis Hattian Tehsil’s
neighbours, suggest that a system of pre and post natal care was in
place.
Living in Azad Kashmir, where literacy levels are above 60%, the
people of Hattian Tehsil are passionately interested in education.
The literacy rate was as high as 46% among the 10 plus segment. This
encouraging literacy rate was not confined to men (63%) alone; 27%
of the women also received formal education. Statistics show that
the younger the people, the more educated they were; 84% people
between 10-14 and 61% between 15 and 19 were attending school.
All this was a result of the attention paid to primary and middle
level education, clearly evidenced by the fact that at the time of
the earthquake, most of the children who perished were inside
primary and middle schools, 90% of which collapsed as a result of
the quake.
Access to information is also considered important here. 13,609
households (76%) had access to radio, TV or newspapers and the
statistics for radio listnership (91%), TV viewership (38%) and
newspaper readership (31%) suggest that many households enjoyed
access to multiple sources of information.
These windows to the outside world, coupled with an inherent need
for education made the people of Hattian Tehsil a progressive
community inching forward.
The October 8th earthquake has wreaked a disastrous
impact on Hattian Tehsil. Ninety percent of all the homes and
schools in the area have been destroyed. Men and women have been
left homeless and without means of income; children have been
orphaned, with the probability of education now closed to them. All
of which will affect their future lives. If, of course, they are
allowed to have a future. Presently they remain a people bereft of
hope.
DAWN
Relief intends to change this. We have already begun the process by
providing the people of Hattian Tehsil with basic food, clothing and
shelter, and their children with schooling. All this at our tent
villages located in Kucha-e-Sayedan, Jiggal Bala, Karthama and
Lamnian-Reshian in Hattian Tehsil. Once past the winter, we will
inaugurate the building of transitional centres for community,
vocational and medical purposes. Finally, we intend to start a
programme aimed at rebuilding homes and other essential buildings on
a permanent basis. And end, hopefully, by rebuilding lives.
 To
identify your prioritised concerns in the matrix of development
targets that need to be fulfilled in these villages, we are
unfurling a large array of precisely determined packages that should
inaugurate for you all the possible solutions for the situation at
hand.
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