An eco-village is “a community that is consciously designed through locally owned participatory processes in all four dimensions of sustainability (social, culture, ecology, and economy) to regenerate social and natural environments.”
The approach is “bottom-up,” multi-sector, and holistic, integrating environmental, economic, and social concerns with respect for natural capital. Our program is aligned with its critical objectives towards achieving the UN millennium development goals: decreasing extreme poverty and hunger, infant and maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS and other diseases; improving access to safe drinking water, education, gender equality; maintaining and improving environmental sustainability.
Land Survey to Select Village Site
Tharparkar, commonly known as Thar, is a district in Sindh province in Pakistan. The district is the largest in Sindh and is home to Pakistan’s most significant Hindu population. It has the lowest Human Development Index score of all the communities in Sindh.
The district has a tropical desert climate. During the summer, it is extremely hot throughout the day, but the nights are much cooler. Thar has been suffering a drought for several decades, and the provincial government has officially declared Thar a drought-affected area. There are wide fluctuations in annual rainfall, and the yearly average in some areas is as low as 100 mm. Currently, the people of this arid region face the impact of multiple droughts, which have led to the deaths of newborns and infants due to malnutrition. Thar is currently seeing a large-scale migration because of these difficulties.
Most in the village live with no means to make a living. Poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and deteriorating infrastructure are all significant issues. The lack of primary health care facilities, gender disparity, high incidence of infant mortality, poor maternity care and child malnutrition are additional grave issues facing these villages. The first ISVP model village project was implemented in 2018 by establishing Furquan Jo Goth, and since then, the model village concept has been implemented in four more villages.
ISVP aspires to take a holistic approach towards village sustainability by developing an eco-system that focuses on mother and child, sanitation, drinking water, women empowerment, vocational training for rural youths, sensitizing the use of green energy and environment under a model village. The project will provide regular access to health care through mobile health camps, computer, maths, and English classes for rural youths and improve skills for women’s self-help groups and help build capacities for village governance.
STP International aims to develop and design a community-based Integrated Sustainable Village Program (ISVP) for villages in Thar to help build a sustainable natural and social environment. With an investment of over PKR 20 million (over $100,000) since its first model village in 2018, it aims to establish prosperous model villages in the Thar area. The underlying principle is holistic development by integrating health, education, livelihoods, and activities such as drinking water, sanitation, energy, land, and water resource management to improve residents’ quality of life. The cluster of villages would be turned into a self-sustaining, profit-generating eco-system with economic and social empowerment primarily focusing on women, children, and young people.
In the long term, the health of mothers and children will be significantly better. Overall, community awareness and knowledge will be advanced (through Computer, Maths & English). The village’s overall health, nutrition, sanitation, and livelihood will all be improved. Government programmes and services will connect village-level committees. STP’s goal is to reach 2000 individuals who will be direct beneficiaries of the program by 2025.
