MY OBAT STORY by QAISAR SHAREEF
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Excerpt:
On my visit in March 2020 to the Stranded Pakistani camps of Bangladesh, I learned about their deep history and was able to witness, first hand, the ongoing plight of these forgotten people. A longstanding belief that they would one day be rescued and repatriated to Pakistan has kept these camp dwellers languishing in filthy, abandoned camps for nearly 50 years, missing every opportunity to assimilate and build lives in Bangladesh. OBAT’s work has challenged this belief and inspired and equipped these families to lift themselves out of the squalor and misery of their lives in the camps, into a life of purpose and progress through education. OBAT is a unique organization that seeks to first stabilize these campers through infrastructure, healthcare, and emergency relief, then builds upon this foundation by creating opportunity and empowerment through education. Even with the many projects that have vastly improved life in the camps, these families still live in abject poverty. However, on my visit I noticed an amazing dedication, excitement, and sense of hope in the youngest generation as they worked toward building a future through OBAT’s many schools, tutoring centers, vocational training programs, and scholarships and stipends supporting higher education. OBAT has shown these families that education offers their best opportunity to break the poverty cycle and begin building better lives for themselves outside of the camps. Much of their success is owed to OBAT’s laser-focus on empowering these people and changing their lives for generations to come. Visiting the camps gave me a special opportunity to see first hand the incredible impact of my and thousands of other donors’ support. OBAT is making a substantial difference. They are achieving their mission and I feel so grateful and honored to be a small part of this historic work.
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A Visit to the Camps by Qaisar Shareef
The story of the “Forgotten People” of Bangladesh was one I was very familiar with in my early years. My father spent much of his life passionately fighting to get these lost people repatriated to their supposed home in Pakistan, but he passed away recently having had limited success. As fate and providence would have it, I became reacquainted with this situation right around the time that I lost my father. Suddenly, I felt such a tremendous pull in my heart to dig deeper and learn more about the tragic predicament of these forgotten people. Thankfully, Mr. Anwar Khan and the OBAT staff were so generous with their time, allowing me a unique opportunity to see the situation in the camps first hand so that I could truly understand what my father had been fighting for.
If you are unfamiliar with the history of the “stranded Pakistanis,” perhaps I should begin there…
The History
In 1947, when India won independence from British rule, the country was divided into Muslim-majority Pakistan and the remaining India. Pakistan actually consisted of two parts, West Pakistan and East Pakistan, which was divided by a thousand miles of Indian territory between. In the first 25 years of Pakistani independence, there was large scale migration of Indian Muslims into the newly independent West and East Pakistan. However, in 1971, a movement for the separation of East Pakistan developed and, by year’s end, East Pakistan became the independent country of Bangladesh. During the war, most of the immigrants from India living in East Pakistan stood with the Pakistani army and were considered to be traitors by locals. At the time of Bangladeshi independence, there were about half million residents of East Pakistan who had sought evacuation to West Pakistan, however, for most, the evacuation never happened, and these people became stranded in a now hostile country whom they had stood against in the civil war.
Today over 300,000 Pakistanis remain stranded in squalid camps in Bangladesh. The Pakistani government has abandoned them, the Bangladeshi government largely ignores or resents them, and India doesn’t want them because they abandoned the country over a century ago. There have been generations of families scraping to survive in the makeshift camps, stranded with no place to call home. Because these Pakistani families never crossed any international borders to lose their land, they cannot be defined as refugees. This allows the UN and many other organizations to largely ignore their existence. Although the Bangladeshi government has recently allowed some degree of citizenship for these people, they have little to no rights and little hope of ever escaping the cycle of poverty they are experiencing in the camps.
This is where OBAT comes in…
Taking a Different Approach
OBAT is a unique organization in that it maintains a very clear and directed focus on helping these people look forward, rather than trying to repair the past. Many camp dwellers have held very tightly to the hope that one day, Pakistan will bring them home. But hanging on to this hope of repatriation has caused some 300,000 people to remain static, suffering in squalor, for generations. Instead, OBAT has stepped in and helped hundreds of thousands of camp families begin living in the present, giving them the motivation and resources they need to begin building new lives as integrated, productive Bangladeshi citizens. These families are realizing that it’s time to stop waiting to return to Pakistan and start working toward a future right here in Bangladesh.
OBAT achieves this mission through building infrastructure, providing relief, and promoting education and independence in these camp communities. Their approach is about breaking the poverty cycle, rather than just alleviating need. It’s a powerful formula for success and the results that I saw on the ground were remarkable.
A Week in the Camps
I visited Dhaka and Chittagong over the course of a week and met with dozens of staff, volunteers, as well as the students and their families. I observed several schools, vocational training facilities, sanitation projects, as well as personal homes of the camp dwellers. It was a harrowing, but inspiring experience. Despite many families living with up to 8 people, sometimes 3 generations, in a single 10×10 makeshift home – their possessions meager, their daily lives seemingly bleak – I found that the children glowed with a kind of optimism and dignity. In the schools they wore crisp, tidy uniforms, were extremely well behaved, and were motivated and dedicated learners. Their teachers, all camp dwellers themselves, took personal responsibility for educating and supporting these students, serving as mentors and examples of what was possible with hard work. OBAT seems to have succeeded in instilling in this new generation of youth a recognition that education is their way out of the misery of camp life. The government of Bangladesh is offering them a very small, limited opportunity to through citizenship, they only have to remain steadfast and continue progressing in their education to take advantage of it. OBAT is ensuring that’s possible.
The OBAT Mission
OBAT was established in 2004, specifically to address the issue of the “Stranded Pakistanis” living in poverty in these camps in Bangladesh. I was attracted to the work of OBAT because of their focus on enabling and empowering these camp dwellers so that their children may have a better future.
OBAT focuses on four areas:
- Education
- Infrastructure, water and sanitation
- Healthcare
- Charity, where urgent needs exist
By improving healthcare, living conditions, and access to basic resources, OBAT alleviates much of the infrastructural issues that impede progress for camp families. Creating stability in these areas allows them to have a primary focus on empowerment through education, via progressive projects such as schools, tutoring, vocational training, and educational scholarships and stipends for higher education. Thanks to OBAT, there are now thousands of children being educated, with several in programs beyond high school. I even met many camp boys and girls who were enrolled in polytechnic institutes and universities!
OBAT’s approach to empowering campers through education allows a full circle model to take hold, where families grow beyond the camps, moving into apartments thanks to higher paying jobs, but often returning to the camps to help improve the conditions for those who still remain.
Final Thoughts
Witnessing the camps first hand was a very powerful experience. The benefit of OBAT’s many projects, especially those concerning infrastructure and healthcare, could be immediately seen. The installation of proper toilets and water pumps completely transformed camp life and allowed the camp dwellers to live with greater cleanliness, privacy, and dignity, improving not only health, but also the culture of the camp overall. However, the keen focus on education is, by far, the most powerful tool being employed to truly transform the lives of these campers. All of OBAT’s efforts to stabilize and improve the quality of living for camp dwellers simply created a strong foundation from which this young generation could stand up and see past the haze of poverty into the hope of a better tomorrow. Stabilization removes the distraction of survival and allows a hopeful youth to see a world of progress, productivity, and value that is finally within reach.
I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to see this incredible transformation first hand, and feel particularly blessed that I am able to support an organization that is actually changing lives for the better. Though I was familiar with the history of the Stranded Pakistani’s through my father’s efforts, I feel especially honored now to be a small part of this beneficial work, as it allows me to carry on my father’s legacy and hopefully achieve something that would make him proud.
Qaisar Shareef
October 27, 2020
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