KARACHI: Amid the hustle and bustle of the city and thick clouds of dust emerging from the under-construction flyover near the Malir Halt traffic intersection, one hardly notices a couple of tables placed under a tent along the main road.

Set up outside a Rangers checkpoint, the camp is one of the several such facilities the paramilitary force has set up across the city to collect funds and goods for the internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Manned by a couple of armed soldiers, the camp that mostly remains deserted reflects the level of response coming from the Karachiites who the charity wings of some political parties say have always showed ‘exceptional generosity’ on appeals but the fresh crisis has so far failed to move them.

They also hold ‘insensitive portrayal’ of the human tragedy by the media responsible for the lukewarm response to the humanitarian aid.

“The media’s role is crucial,” said Engineer Abdul Aziz, secretary of Al-Khidmat Foundation – charity arm of the Jamaat-i-Islami – which is headed by the former Karachi mayor Niamatullah Khan. He said: “The 2005 earthquake prompted massive and aggressive media campaign that attracted tremendous public response. The same trend we witnessed in the 2010 floods when the media made people realise about their contribution.”

The Al-Khidmat Foundation secretary said the 2011 floods in Sindh also had failed to get due media coverage with the result that the Karachiites did not donate much on humanitarian grounds for the people displaced by the floods.

The Al-Khidmat Foundation spent more than Rs23 billion aid among the 20 million people during the first three months of the financial year, he said, adding that his organisation was now bracing for this year’s ‘biggest challenge’.

Mr Aziz said his organisation would provide relief to more than half a million internally displaced persons mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through its 150,000 volunteers.

“But that all aid work depends on people’s contribution. We are an NGO that doesn’t generate any business through any commercial activity. We only help people through people. So it’s time for every Pakistani regardless of his or her background to come forward and make a contribution,” said the secretary of Al-Khidmat Foundation.

“We have so far dispatched dozens of trucks and relief goods to Bannu where we have set up a camp and other parts of the province for the IDPs.

“After collecting funds and goods in Karachi and other cities, we will send teams of our volunteers to help them out in the next phase,” he added.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) Nasir Jamal is found in agreement with the JI’s Al-Khidmat Foundation secretary though the two parties have no match in political ideology and ambitions.

Mr Jamal believed that the ‘response is not yet overwhelming’ and it must gather pace ‘before it’s too late’.

“Unfortunately, the media is not taking it as a priority and is engaged in discussions over non-issues,” said Mr Jamal, whose party’s Khidmat-e-Khalq Foundation has so far handed over four trucks of relief goods to Pakistan Army to deliver them to the IDPs.

The MQM’s charity wing in line with directives of the party chief Altaf Hussain has designed aggressive campaigning for the IDPs. While addressing a rally last week, Mr Hussain had made an appeal for ‘generous contribution for the IDPs’.

“I remember the response to the 2005 earthquake was so overwhelming that we ran short of space to store goods. It’s an ongoing process and for that I believe the media will have to play its role to make people aware of the consistent effort needed to meet the challenge,” he concluded.

Unlike the JI and MQM, which seem active on the front, the others have yet to come up with any plan on these lines. Surprisingly, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, which emerged as Karachi’s second largest party in the last year elections and is directly facing the challenge in KP for being its ruling party, says the key leadership has not yet conveyed any strategy on the subject.

“PTI’s Karachi chapter has organisational capacity to run any campaign in the city, but so far there is no such activity,” said the party spokesman. He was not sure even about any such plan in the near future.

However, some individuals such as Mohammad Jibran Nasir, a social activist, have generated funds by campaigning on the social media to dispatch food for 1,000 IDP families for a week. “Social media is our only source of advertisement. We have been approached mainly by the overseas Pakistanis. After dispatching ration boxes for 1,000 families through armed forces, we have now identified 32 locations to set up 20 water pumps and 20 clay ovens which look crucial for the relief of IDPs.”

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2014