Standing in the kutcha street outside their homes in Karachi, in the gentle sunshine of a January morning, Chanda Khanum and her neighbour, Ghulam Sakina, voiced their anguish at the recent killing of polio workers in the city. “They went out to work for only 250 rupees a day,” said Sakina, shaking her head. “Why were they targeted? They were only doing their job.”

The women, who live in Karachi’s low-income locality of Orangi, know a thing or two about trying to make ends meet. And about the inexplicable dangers that stalk even those whose work serves the underprivileged.

Chanda and Ghulam are members of a women’s savings group project that Perween Rahman, well-known social activist and director of the acclaimed Orangi Pilot Project (OPP), had been working on when she was murdered near her office on March 13, 2013. A tireless advocate for the poor, especially the women, this was a project dear to her heart.

(No one has yet been charged with her murder although there is suspicion that criminal elements involved in the area in activities such as land-grabbing and operating illegal water hydrants — which she was documenting — may have been responsible.)

The savings groups are based on a Sri Lankan model that was replicated here in 2010 by the Technical Training and Resource Centre (TTRC) in coordination with the OPP. Each member contributes her monthly savings — usually between 100 and 300 rupees — towards a central fund which entitles members to interest-free loans of up to Rs10,000 each. Loans have to be paid back within one year before the borrower is entitled to ask for another.

This has enabled the women to start or expand small home-based businesses such as embroidery, poultry-keeping, animal husbandry, and so on. Some have even set up beauty parlours in their homes. Still others have used it to pay for health and education expenses.

Chanda is the leader of her group, which has 60 members. There are 14 such groups of varying sizes in Orangi with a total of around 300 members. In what used to be her living room, a khaddi (a wooden frame on which material is stretched while being embroidered) occupies most of the space. Her son and daughter sit at either end, deftly threading glittering sequins and beads on a fuchsia-coloured material.

“My two daughters-in-law and I also work on the khaddi,” said Chanda Khanum. “We complete six or seven pieces per week, sometimes putting in nights, for which we’re paid Rs550 each by a middleman who then sells them in the market.”

Her neighbour Nasreen Bibi, who leads another savings group, has opened a small shoe factory with a loan of Rs10,000 and employed four workers who make up to 40 pairs per day. “My son had a hi-roof van in which he ferried children to and from school,” she said. “Now he’s hired a driver for doing that while he supervises the work at the factory.”

Membership of the savings groups in Orangi also entitles the women to interest-free loans up to Rs24,000 for small improvements to their homes, which comes out of another programme managed by the OPP. Both the OPP and TTRC also offer them technical advice pertaining to ventilation, construction, etc.

With the help of such a loan, Ghulam Sakina, who sells ‘herbal’ beauty lotions sourced from Punjab, has raised the ceiling of her house so that the room where her physically handicapped daughter spends most of her time will be cooler in the summer. “Unfortunately, my neighbour refused to allow me to put in a ventilator in the adjoining wall as I was advised to do,” she said. “But it’s still better than before.”

The women’s savings groups in Orangi are part of a project that continues to grow and thrive. There are now 147 such groups in Karachi, upper Sindh and lower Punjab with a total membership of 100,000.

Perween Rahman would go out of her way to interact with the women and build their capacity to empower themselves. Chanda Khanum’s eyes grew moist as she recalled the group’s monthly meetings with her. “She would sit on the ground with us, laugh and joke with us. How could anyone kill someone so kind?”