Instep Today: Which areas have you visited?
Hadiqa Kiani: The affected areas I have visited so far are Basti Kalraywala, near Muzaffargarh and 60 per cent of Nowshera. I recently visited these areas with the intentions to reconstruct and facilitate a certain portion of Nowshera due to the fact that the areas I have visited have unfortunately gone unnoticed by various donors.
Instep Today: Tell us about what you saw?
Hadiqa Kiani: What I saw on TV was just 50 per cent of what I personally saw with my own eyes. Broken homes and teary eyes, so much pain in the overall environment, so much devastation, kids with skin infections, red eye problems, and pregnant women forced to spend their time in mere camps in an unhygienic environment with no basic maternal facilities. All they want is to go back to their homes before winter comes. What people don’t really know is that there have been two kinds of destruction; one being structural destruction and the other one is material destruction. The sad part is that we fail to understand or see that there is “still” a serious need to work on both types of destruction.
Instep Today: What relief efforts are you making personally?Hadiqa Kiani: I started my personal efforts from August 11, when I made a promise to myself and decided that I will help by any means necessary. I took out funds from my bank, called in my friends and family members to pool in for any type of help they could offer; ranging from clothes, food, medicine etc. My sister, two nephews and niece were the first ones to help support me. My other family members and friends supported me in this noble cause. My friend Saima Magsi’s husband who’s the general secretary of the Pakistan Union Austin Texas also arranged some basic funds from Dallas (Texas) from which I bought family packs from METRO including all the basic food items required for survival and needed in everyday life. I delivered those to the Army Flood Relief Camp, Fortress Stadium, Lahore. I repeated the same procedure of buying food items and dropping them at the army flood relief camp, quiet a few times. Other than that I also made a few appeals including one given in University of Central Punjab (UCP) to collectively help in this disaster. I got a great response from the students and its faculty. MashaAllah they collected funds through which they are going to reconstruct one of the small affected village known as Seeth Pur near Muzaffargarh. I do feel my campaign of helping the affected victims of flood did work well. I did another appeal in the school of the underprivileged children and was really touched the way they had collected food items, toys etc.
What about public involvement via your celebrity status? How has the response been?Hadiqa Kiani: As far as the appeals and appearances are concerned, the response that I have gotten has helped me in achieving a certain goal. But in my heart I am extremely insatiable and unsatisfied in regards to the efforts I have made till now. Doing something good in the name of humanity and for the sake of patriotism will always be less and feel less and my restless nature keeps me on my toes to do more and give more to my country.
Instep Today:
What is next on your agenda?
Hadiqa Kiani: What I had gathered from my visits is that the affected victims need a shelter more than anything at this time and my mission is to get them that, InshaAllah by the support of people who trust me.
