The campaign urges people to donate essentials including buckets, steel cups and plates, saucepans, cooking pots, mosquito nets, sanitary napkins, soap, shampoo, towels, lota (mugs), hairbrushes and combs, wooden poles, ropes, tarpaulins, (4 x 6 meter), jerry cans, blankets and clothing.
“Millions of people displaced by the floods are in desperately in need of basic essentials for life. Many of them have nothing but the clothes on their backs and they need our immediate help until they are able to return home,” says Hassan Abdel Moneim Mostafa, IOM Regional Representative for West and Central Asia.
Following a request from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), IOM joined hands with media group Express and Herald Tribune, and international fast food franchise McDonalds, to set up collection centres in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi, Sialkot, Faisalabad and Hyderabad.
The IOM-supported public appeal, which started yesterday and will continue for two weeks, is also being supported by electronic media including FM 91, Apna Karachi 107 radio, Aaj TV, CNBC TV, Express TV, Express 24x7 and Herald Tribune.
Anyone interested in donating life-saving goods for flood victims should check out the Sunday-editions of newspapers including Jang, Nawa-e-Waqt, Express, The News, Daily Times and Herald Tribune or follow the listed electronic media during the coming week.
These donations will support the efforts of aid agencies taking part in the UN humanitarian water and sanitation, shelter and logistics clusters. The logistics cluster, led by the World Food Programme (WFP), will help deliver donated relief items to the flood victims.
The Herald Tribune has also already collected 10 million rupees in donations to buy all-weather tents, which will be handed over to emergency shelter cluster agencies for distribution among flood victims.
IOM coordinates the cluster of 40 UN and other relief agencies working with the NDMA and international donors to deliver emergency shelter and non-food relief items to flood victims.
For more information on IOM’s activities in Pakistan and flood relief pictures, please go to: http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/pakistan.
For additional information please contact Saleem Rehmat at IOM Islamabad. Tel. +92.3008560341. Email: srehmat@iom.int. Or Chris Lom. Email: clom@iom.int. Tel. +66.819275215.
