KARACHI, Aug 1: In Pakistan, it is rare that people who have actually accomplished great things in their respective fields are ever acknowledged by the state during their lives. Rukhsana Hameedi was no exception to the rule. Yet in July of this year, President Musharraf awarded to her the Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in Islamabad, to recognize the work she had done over a two-decade span for the Population Welfare Division of the government of Sindh.
Specifically, Rukhsana was a pioneer in the field of population education and planning, and was instrumental in introducing population education as part of the provincial curriculum from class six onwards. She personally worked on designing and developing teacher training manuals, and conducted workshops throughout rural Sindh. The significance of her work should not be lost, because the core of her work was carried out during the Zia years, when population planning was hardly a priority due to the dictator’s Islamization agenda.
Friends and professional colleagues remember her immaculate saris, her elegance, and the aura of refinement which are not quite the image of the grassroots social worker, yet Rukhsana was all of that, and extremely hands-on when it came to going out in the field and executing her work. Ferida Sher, and old friend and colleague who worked with her said, “In contrast to her social image, Rukhsana was a real grassroots worker who never shirked from going into the field and forming a rapport with people in the communities at all levels. This is especially significant since population education was, and perhaps still is, a sensitive issue.”
She definitely belonged to a different breed of development professional, who wasn’t afraid to go out in the field before developing her policy recommendations. This is a far cry from the self-styled “consultants” running around today with their “policy prescriptions” churned out from slick urban offices. Obviously the age of substance has been replaced by style alone. People like Rukhsana Hameedi were blessed with both.
Rukhsana collaborated with the Basti Project, which called for the establishment of “home schools” in close collaboration with local NGOs throughout rural Sindh. To date, 150 such schools have been established throughout the region, based on the experiences of the Basti Project. The Project was recognized by UNESCO as a model for urban community development, and went on to replicate it throughout rural Pakistan, and also made it part of its Regional Urban Community Development Policy.
Rukhsana’s real gift was being able to communicate her message effectively across a broad spectrum. Anita Ghulam Ali, the Education Minister of the government of Sindh recalls her being an excellent communicator. Having worked on a number of writing assignments with Rukhsana, Prof Ghulam Ali believes that one of the reasons Rukhsana was so good at what she did was that she actually believed in her work and was completely committed to it. From international conferences to the remotest village in Sindh, Rukhsana had no difficulty in adapting her message for the audience at hand.
Probably her last project was in 1990, which was the “Year of the Girl Child”, where she used her usual enthusiasm despite failing health to organize workshops, training, and literacy campaigns to highlight the problems faced by girls in our society. The Girl Child Strategy was an enormous success, and it brought the issues of gender inequality to the forefront. Rukhsana worked throughout her career with extreme humility and optimism, and carried her personal style wherever she went; and fortunately, she is remembered for it.
Despite the times she was working in, she had mastered the art of creating spaces within the system to carry forward her work, rather than merely point out its inadequacies. Nighat Saeed Khan, co-founder of ASR, a Lahore based women’s NGO, summed up Rukhsana’s professionalism by recalling a workshop in 1988.
“In 1988, Rukhsana came to a workshop. (She) was a senior government official (and) had a zest for learning, and didn’t let anyone know who she was. (She) learnt just like anyone else. That was a part of her personality, which was the same whether she was home or at work. The one thing I was really fascinated by was that (she was) somebody who was so elegant, and didn’t give the impression of the sort of work she did. She was a thorough professional, and had enormous dignity about her. Rukhsana was a complete human being.”
