Profile

Vehari District was created in 1976. There are three tehsils of District Vehari namely Vehari, Burewala and Mailsi. Vehari means low lying settlement by a flood water channel the district, at present borders with Bahawalnagar and Bahawalpur on the southern side, with Pakpatan on the eastern, with Khanewal and Lodhran on western and with Shiwal and Khanewal on northern side.

The district Vehari is spread over an area of 4,373 Square kilometres with Population 2090416 as per 2001 Census and major languages spoken in Vehari are Punjabi,Saraiki and Urdu

Vehari is the capital of the cotton growing area of south Punjab and all over Pakistan. There are dozens of cotton processing factories and cotton-seed oil manufacturing plants in this area. Sugar cane grows easily and there are many sugar mills.

Total Number of Tehsils = 3 and Total Unions = 89

Awaz Foundation Pakistan: Centre for Development Services started work in District Vehari in 2005. Its first Project was “Integrated Primary Healthcare Program” IPHP. AwazCDS intervened in 32 selected villages of 8 Unions Councils of Tehsil & District Vehari. Awaz had 8 years of experience in planning and implementation of mother and child health care programs particularly in District Multan and Vehari.

Life Skills Based Education Program

 The main objective of the program is to develop an efficient model/approach that ensures all adolescents (especially girls) have access Life Skill Based Education and are empowered to develop and sustain the knowledge, skills and attitude necessary to make culturally appropriate safe choices about their life by adopting responsible behaviors by:

• Increasing their understanding of the social, psychological and physical changes associated with adolescents

• By improving their self esteem and self confidence

• By protecting them from unhealthy activities as drug use, HIV/ AIDS, unwanted pregnancies

• Developing skills for resisting peer pressure and become a responsible citizen of the nation

AwazCDS is running this project in 18 schools of District Vehari with the support of District Governments and public and private schools.

Awaz PARC (People Awareness & Rights Committee )Vehari Networks

Awaz PARC Network in Vehari  is lead by Ms. Sabohi Hassan along with 32 other members. Through her Women Welfare Society PARC Vehari is running different advocacy activities in district Vehari. It has total of 26 member organizations. Women Welfare Society is the women led organization in Vehari aims at empowering these lives by adopting a holistic approach in dealing with issues and problems. WWS is focusing to improve the living standard of the vulnerable and disadvantaged women and children through education and empowerment. Till now through the platform of the Awaz PARC (People Awareness & Rights Committee) networks implemented various campaigns in the local community of the Vehari district. They are:-

• Youth Awareness Campaign for Peace Democracy and Human Rights (YAC-PDHR)

• Campaign on Transparent Elections “Merey Vote ka Sahi Haqdar Kon”

• Campaign about the issues of Local Government System

• Citizen’s Rights Campaign on Safe Drinking Water

• Women Rights Campaign on Women Rights of Inheritance

• Stand Up & Take Action Campaign

This Awaz PARC networks Vehari’s basic aim is to empower people so that they can raise their voices for their rights. The network covered almost all of the Southern Punjab through its partners and this has been the key to success of this network. Amongst other, Awaz PARC Network Vehari worked on identification of different gender related violence issues and taken lead in creating awareness in the society about human rights. Vehari is at the top in violence cases. Up till now since January 2010, 261women violence cases had been recorded in the AwazCDS database. AwazCDS along with its network is trying to reduce this ratio through its various advocacy programs.