Zubair Qureshi
As a positive gesture and to help the elderly beneficiaries/dwellers of the Panahgah (Shelter Homes) meet their families and spend their Eid with them, Shelter Home is sending some fifty elderly dwellers back to their native towns for one week.
Prime Minister’s Focal Person on Shelter Homes Naseem ur Rehman while talking to Pakistan Observer said those who are on their way back include some 50 elderly dwellers of the ‘Panahgahs’ of twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad to let them enjoy the Eid festivities with the their families.
For this purpose, “Apni Panahgah Team”— a core group of dedicated persons who regularly provide contingency support to the Panahgah in practical demonstration of support for the Prime Minister’s initiative to bring the much-needed help to the poor, has arranged donations and made contributions to arrange fare for these elderly people on their way back.
However, he said these volunteers had requested not to make their names public as they were doing all this good work purely on volunteer basis and not for the purpose of publicity.
Naseem said not only these elderly persons will be facilitated in their return journey but “we shall also welcome them after one week to stay at the facilities and get two meals per day.”
He said the initiative is meant to reunite the deserving elderly with their loved ones on the occasion of Eid-ul-Azha.
“We have finalized the arrangements for sponsoring a senior daily wager travel from ‘Panahgah’ to his home so that he can be united with his family,” Naseem ur Rehman told the media here during his routine visit to the Shelter Home of Sector G-9/4.
He said some 100 deserving elderly residents had been identified in a quick survey which was carried out to determine the financial health of ‘Panahgahs Guests’.
“We have carefully identified the needy and the poor who cannot afford to be with their family as their effort to survive has touched the rock bottom due to Covid fall out.”
He said ‘Apni Panahgah Teams’ of Islamabad and Rawalpindi composed of dedicated team of volunteers had come forwards in a small but significant step to unite elder migrant daily wagers with their families on the Eid.
“Beyond Food and Shelter, Panahgahs are evolving into a flashpoint of hope for the migrant daily earners, who have been bearing the brunt of economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic,” he remarked.
