Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
STUDENT Milan Malik returned to Pakistan from Bahrain to lend a helping hand with a vital child health initiative and to assist orphans.
The teenager took a summer trek to actively distribute polio drops to young children in one of Lahore’s poorest areas, before undertaking a week’s work at a local orphanage.
Milan, 18, who has lived in Bahrain for 11 years and resides with his family in Saar, said: “I really wanted to do some charity work and luckily I was contacted by my cousin back in Pakistan who knew of work being carried out in the area.
“The SOS Children’s Village charity is established across Pakistan, but are particularly present in Lahore. I wanted to go there because it’s an area I feel really needs help and support. It suffered severe floods last year which rendered many children orphaned.”
Pakistan also has the highest number of polio cases per year, with 303 new cases recorded in 2014. It is one of only three countries where the disease is still considered as an epidemic, the others being Nigeria and Afghanistan.
Milan spent a fortnight in Lahore issuing polio drops, but says that the amount of administrative work and complexity of the operation surprised him. He explained: “I spent most of my time in the offices as the procedure was very difficult to plan. We were in three-person teams, so we would carefully plan the route we would take and how many houses we would go to. We obviously had to avoid overlapping with each other, which would waste resources. Every couple of days we’d also have to retrace our steps to ensure we did not miss anyone.
“To further complicate matters, each trip out had a very narrow window. The vaccines had to be kept cold the entire time, and with lots of power shortages in the area, you had to be really precise when you went out.
“Not only that, but we carried the vaccines in what were essentially small water coolers on our backs and they would only be good for a couple of hours. Once they were exposed to too much warmth, which in the summer is only about two hours, they were useless as you could not re-cool them.”
The polio operation was supported by the government of Pakistan and was in collaboration with the World Health Organisation. Only children under the age of five are eligible for a drop, but once administered they are vaccinated for many years.
Milan’s next port of call was a nearby orphanage run by the charity, where he visited every day to interact with the children, most of whom were under 13.
He said: “I enjoyed the orphanage as I had time to interact and talk to the kids, rather than having to quickly move on. I helped them to learn English and took them to a small park next to the orphanage where we could play sports and do other activities.”
Milan also provided the children with 60 T-shirts that had been collected by St Christopher’s School, where he is the currently head boy.
His trip to Pakistan was not his first charitable venture supported by the school, as in 2013 he went to Thailand as part of the school’s annual charity programme. After first raising funds in Bahrain, 30 students, including Milan, visited the country for a week to help build a school, which they did literally by collecting sand and gravel to make concrete for the construction workers.
Milan also raised some extra money to sponsor an orphaned girl in Thailand.
The caring pupil is currently undertaking the International Baccalaureate programme, and dreams of gaining admission to the celebrated Stanford University in the US to study either Chemistry or Biology with a view to a career in medicine.
He said: “One of the main reasons for taking part in the polio project was as a taster for the sort of things I’d like to be doing if I pursued this profession. I enjoyed it immensely, it’s a great feeling knowing you’re helping people, even if it appears to just be a small thing. I would love to do more charity work in future and make as much of a difference as I can.”
