KOT DIJI: For Stephen David Sheen, the 2022 floods have hit much more personally than the 2010 super floods that coincided with his first visit to Pakistan. “After 12 years, I feel this is my community. I have felt the impact much more strongly; it is closer to the heart,” the 36-year-old Welshman recently told Dawn.

Mr Sheen, or Steve, as he is known among the locals of Kot Diji, Khairpur, had wanted to travel the world after completing a master’s degree in Physics from the University of Leeds. He had reached Pakistan in 2010, when a fourth of the country was submerged. Though Mr Sheen had planned on eventually leaving for India, he ended up staying in hot and humid Kot Diji, where he had come to volunteer at a school for a summer camp.

He now heads the Indus Resource Centre’s (IRC) Faiz High School, located near the historic fort. He works under IRC’s Founder and Executive Director, Sadiqa Salahuddin, and has remained in Pakistan for the past 12 years, travelling to his home country just once every year during that period. The Faiz High School has been known as ‘angrez ka school’ — ‘the Englishman’s school’ — ever since Steve started teaching there.

The school recently became home to several hundred IDPs from Kot Diji after a substantial part of the town was submerged in the recent floods. The residents of several old mohallas around the school who had been rendered homeless took refuge in the school, and it soon began to resemble a tent city. The better-to-do eventually left for other abodes, but the underprivileged and those who had nowhere else to turn to stayed back.

Read: 1.67m displaced in Sindh following back-to-back monsoon spells, says PDMA

A collaborative effort was launched by a group of local volunteers, philanthropists and religious organisations. Steve became a part to coordinate and streamline management.

“People trust Steve,” said Mujahid Jumani, a volunteer at Tanzeem Mohiban-e-Abbas, a local religious organisation. “He put in his sweat and blood to organise everything. Even the locals don’t have his zeal.”

Some 14-15 families are still staying in the school while the authorities struggle to drain Kot Diji’s old mohallas. Others have returned after the water receded from their homes. Kot Diji did not witness such flooding in the recent past, locals said.

“After initially focusing purely on the nutritional needs of the IDPs, we are now in a position to support the families in a more holistic manner,” Mr Sheen told Dawn.

Speaking about his management of the camp, Mr Sheen said he coordinates disbursements to avoid any doubling. “I am one among many volunteers,” he said, asserting that without others’ support, it would have been challenging to manage this temporary shelter for IDPs.

For example, Mir Mehdi Raza, a scion of the Talpur royal family, made sure that people in the camp got fed. “Initially, it was an everyday struggle just to make sure people had food. Then we got an outpouring of support from people like Mir Mehdi Raza, Mujahid Jumani and others,” Mr Sheen said.

“We started distributing packets of cooked rice. One packet would be shared by three family members, and they would get just that one packet for one day. Eventually, we expanded, and the survivors started getting larger quantities of food.”

Planning for the future

“One of our classrooms had collapsed when we received the first rainfall. It was really depressing,” Mr Sheen recalled, switching effortlessly between Sindhi, Urdu and English. He said he worried about how he would manage the school without that room.

“Then, within a space of three days, three more rooms collapsed. That’s when I first started to comprehend the scale of the disaster and began wondering what its long-term impact would be,” he added.

The IRC school is housed in a heritage site. It lost a total of 10 out of its 23 classrooms after they caved in due to rain damage to the building they were housed in. Many other old buildings in the area, including some heritage properties, have been similarly damaged by the rains.

“Another seven classrooms will need repair. Even when the tent city winds up, we will have a tent school and classes will have to be conducted there. This is the only option,” Mr Sheen said. Some classrooms in one of the school’s other buildings are still functional. Other classes are already being conducted in tents.

Mr Jumani, the volunteer working with the religious NGO, said the community felt that Mr Sheen had managed everything on merit. He remains deeply involved in the camp while imparting education. “For instance, he will just start cleaning if he sees the need to. His spirit for the community is just remarkable,” Mr Jumani stated.

On Mr Sheen’s part, he said his connection to the community has grown. He had been focused on the school for the past 12 years and would usually meet regularly with only a small group of locals. “It was mostly the fathers who came to the school. It is a completely different interaction now, sharing a small space continuously with other people,” he explained.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2022