Joint Venture Report -Mardan Region

By YesPakistan.com Staff Writer

One of major focus of the Human Development Foundation’s program is to mobilize and organize the community in its project area. We believe that the people know their problems and often times also know the solutions, but lack the resources and the skills to implement these solutions. And so before even starting its projects in any community, HDF workers talk to the village people and educate them with the goals, objectives and the methodology of the project. It is only after the village people have accepted and agreed to participate in the program that HDF will proceed any further. The first step towards starting the HDF project is to establish a Development Organization for the villagers, men and women.

The first ever such DO was formed in the village of Ghulam Sarwar Khan. When the HDF micro-credit program was started, many DO members took loans to buy agricultural products e.g. fertilizers, seeds etc. But even after the money was available to buy the products, there were some problems e.g. fertilizer that was available in the market had many impurities, the distance and the cost of transportation was another problem. As the number of the borrowers increased some ideas were discussed to overcome some of these problems.

After many discussions it was decided to start a local business of selling fertilizers. After doing proper market feasibility, a place for this business was selected in Saleem Khan Chowk. This is a centrally located area accessible not only to the people of Manga and Khazana Dheri but also to the residents of Sarband and Chamtar. One of the DO members was employed as the salesman.

HDF and the DO are 50/50 partners in this venture. So now not only the fertilizer is available to all at a lesser cost but also more conveniently and in a pure form. This venture has encouraged the other people in the community to start such small businesses in partnership with each other.