HANDS collaborates with the Ministry of Health and Sindh Education Foundation

The Health and Nutrition Development Society (HANDS) has been working since 1979 with a mission to improve primary and secondary health facilities, the quality of education and to alleviate poverty through capacity building.
HANDS works in public and private sectors and benefits more than 2 million people of 5000 villages in the districts of Hyderabad, Sanghar, Badin, Thatta, Shikarpur, Sukkar, Dadu and others.
HANDS, using a community participatory approach, initially worked in health and education, but has now extended its interventions to community development, water and sanitation, credit and savings, gender, advocacy and networking and human resource development and has developed more than 1,895 Community Organisations (male and female).
The Government is supporting HANDS' deferent programmes such as Reproductive Health Programme in 13 districts of Sindh, Tawana Pakistan which is funded by the Ministry of Women Development and Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal, and the Fellowship School Programme (Hyderabad district) in collaboration with the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF).
THE NEED FOR A PARTNERSHIP:
When HANDS started working in rural areas of Sindh, their only objective was to reach out to the poor and provide them with basic medical treatment and consultations. It was only when they got first hand information about government facilities regarding health and education that they decided to join hands with government to improve the situation. Government realised the need to reach out to the poor and collaborated with this organisation.
HANDS is among those few CSOs who have made it part of their mission to collaborate with the government in order to not only bring improvements in the quality of life of poor people, but also to assist the government in bringing about positive changes at both policy and institutional level.
How did the partnership develop:
Applauding their development initiatives, recognised by World Population Foundation (WPF), the Sindh District Education Department chose HANDS as the implementing partner for their Life Skills Based Education Programme (LSBE). The project aims to improve the health and life skills of the school going youth (2-17 years) in Matiari District. After successful collaboration, WPF started the second phase of the LSBE project funded by National Aids Control Programme in 2006.
PARTNERSHIP RESULTS:
The most significant changes can be observed in the health sector where they have adopted two Tehsil hospitals in rural Malir and Matiari. These hospitals are being run by government doctors, but with the supervision and consultation of HANDS who not only donated some basic equipment but also helped them to establish nursing schools where most of the resources were generated by HANDS.
To analyse the impact of the programmes' a review meeting was organised in which people directly or indirectly involved in the project were invited to give their feedback. District government officials, religious scholars, parents, Head Master/Mistresses, educators, adolescents and media representatives all candidly appraised the pros and cons of the project whilst impressing upon all the need for strong liaisons between the government, the public and the private sector for future interventions.
KEY SUCCESS FACTORS:
-- Mutual trust and respect
-- Strong liaison between the government and HANDS
-- Lessons Learnt:
These collaborative initiatives were made possible only when government realised that HANDS's only objective is to help out the poor in every way possible. Once the trust was developed then it was a very smooth process and now both parties are very comfortable with each other.