The past couple of days have been very tiring as I visited the flood affected areas of Swat, Pakistan along with a relief response team of a non-profit youth organization FLP(Future Leaders of Pakistan).
The journey started off on August 12 at around 10 PM Pakistan time when I got myself armed with all the necessary gadgets and stuff and left for the bus terminal. There, at around 11 PM, the I left for Islamabad in a passenger bus. At around 3:30 AM, I reached there and started waiting for the rest of the convoy members to show up as we had planned to gather at the Rawalpindi terminal.
After around 3 hours of waiting, the members of FLP showed up and there we loaded a few more relief goods in the bus. The truck prepared with the donations gather by the FLP members was to follow us all the way to Swat. We were 5 members in the bus and 2 additional members were following us in the car.
And thus, the journey began at 7 AM on August 13. We reached there at around 11:30, we were received by the locals who happened to be our hosts and guide to the relief camps.
There we loaded the truck with some additional packages, have a look at the photo of while we were loading the goods:
Half of the goods were contributed to the Pak Army’s relief efforts while others were distributed by ourselves to a camp situated in a small area which they had named as Bangladesh. It was so named because it rains a lot.
On visiting the relief camps, we witnessed the misery of the victims as they were badly affected by the deadly floods. The locals hardly had any water to drink or to bathe. The damage was very severe and victims were large in numbers as we couldn’t cover even half of the families of that camp.
A group photo with the Soldiers
We saw the sadness there which is natural but we never noticed the disappointment in their eyes. They were hopeful of the efforts carried out by Pakistani youth. The patriotism was at its peak as the locals were overwhelmed with the peace, the Pak Army has brought there. We saw little kids wearing the Pakistani badge of Independence day. People were hoisting Pakistani flags and had painted their doors with its designs.
You can see the photographs of the journey in the gallery below:
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- A group photo with the Soldiers
