Monday, 10 December 2012

It is astonishing what the human being can achieve


There are times when you begin to doubt yourself.  To see flaws, imperfections in all aspects of your persona.  Then cracks appear which effect your outer façade.  How you seem to others deteriorates until huge chunks of who you once were begin to fall away.  It’s not that we are, what others think of us.  It’s more that we are easily polluted by our environment.  We all like to think of ourselves as impervious to such erosion but unfortunately we’re not.  Once the slide into disintegration has begun no energy goes into reconstruction. All of it is diverted into keeping up appearances.  Trying to fool the onlooker that, actually, all is well.  So many organisations and  individuals are in that mode.  They don’t take criticism well because it strikes at the very core of what they have become.  Hypocritical shells of themselves.  Criticism to them can only fuel huge self-deception and aggressive defensiveness.  It is so easy to lose the plot.  Principles go out the window as pragmatism dominates.  In such a slippery state the hardest thing to do, is exactly what you need to do.  You need to set aside your own perspectives and learn from others.  It is perhaps hardest to do because it demands a trust of others at a point when we no longer even trust ourselves.  

One example of what one individual can achieve when they believe in themselves and go for their goals is the Edhi Foundation.  Abdul Sattar Edhi started a welfare centre in Pakistan with the equivalent of fifty-three pounds.  He bought an old van, which he called "poor man’s van" and he drove around providing medical help and burying unclaimed bodies. 

With his wife, a nurse, he has built a foundation that has grown to have 300 centres across the country, runs 8 hospitals providing free medical care, eye hospitals, diabetic centres, surgical units, a 4- bed cancer hospital and mobile dispensaries and they have in addition to a fleet of ambulances their very own air ambulance service.
Their achievements are breath taking indeed and include:

20,000 abandoned babies rescued
40,000 qualified nurses have been trained
50,000 orphans are housed in Edhi Homes
1 million babies have been delivered in Edhi Maternity Centres
1800 ambulances (the largest ambulance fleet in Pakistan and the largest private ambulance service network in the world)

He is now 82 years old and has been working for 60 years to serve the poor and the suffering. Here is a description of this modest man and his home,

“Edhi remains a very down-to-earth person, dressed always in grey homespun cotton local clothes.  Apart from the one room, which he uses for his living quarters, the rest of the building serves as his workplace in Mithadar, a locality of old Karachi that is full of narrow streets and congested alleyways. Adjoining their living room is a small kitchen where his wife usually prepares the midday meal. Next to it is a washing area where bodies are bathed and prepared for burial.”

It is astonishing what the human being can achieve when it sets out to try and solve the challenges society faces.  He may be half way around the world from us but isn’t it heartening to hear of an individual making a real difference. 

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