How Dar Ul Sukun tries to improve the Pakistani situation for children with disabilities
Hey everyone,
First of all I would like to thank 
Understanding languages and other cultures builds bridges. It is the fastest way to bring the world closer together and to Truth. Through understanding, people will be able to see their similarities before differences.
Suzy Kassem
Besides the creators of the contest, I also want to thank 
Personal thoughts
Before I start talking about Dar Ul Sukun, I first want to write down some reflections. I have to admit that I'm a bit suspicious about charities. Every now and than you hear stories about charity scandals where corrupt politicians or selfish people are 'stealing' the funds which should go to those who are in need. So when I donate, I would rather donate to an organization of which I know someone who is actually spending the resources rightfully. This could be a local organization or an organization abroad where a friend of mine is helping.
Therefore I'm going to try to research a Pakistani charity fund of which I'll try to take a closer look to their financial situation and what they are actually doing with the money aswell.
As my post is solely based on the information I found on the internet, it's very plausible that there's other information which I didn't find or maybe I even used incorrect information although I did my best to research my sources, so feel free to give me your remarks in the comments!
I hope you'll enjoy this article about Dar Ul Sukun (DUS)!
Why Dar Ul Sukun?
I started my research with a search for a charity in Pakistan which would have a link with Belgium or the Netherlands, as I live in Flanders, it would mean I would have somehow a connection with it. After some googling I saw Dar Ul Sukun. It's a charity which was founded in 1969 by a Dutch nun: sister Truus Lemmens. For me this was a sort of a bond, enough for me to start my research about this charity. When I had my first glance at several websites, I managed to find the financial reports aswell as more information about what was exactly done. As I already stated, I'm sometimes suspicious about charities, so this gave me already some confidence. When I read their vision I was completely sold:
We envision a society where all people with disability get preferential status in access to due health care, education, food, shelter and employment opportunity to live integrated and dignified life.
Source
Especially the aspect of integration and a dignified life attracted me, since in my experience it's really a change of life when someone starts to get the feeling that he can add value to society, how small it could be, it's invaluable.
What is Dar Ul Sukun?
The charity is located in Karachi, in the province of Sindh in Pakistan. Sister Lemmens wanted to improve the living conditions of the elderly, the ill, poliopatients, orphan girls, so in short of the people with very bad living circumstances. Already in 1939, at the age of 25, Truus went to Pakistan in the path of her brother who was on a mission in Pakistan as a priest. Impressed by the bad living condition of people with multiple disabilities, she decided to give her life for these people. As already said, she founded Dar Ul Sukun in 1969 which in origin was a house to help children who had severe multiple disabilities. In reality Truus wasn't only accepting to help children only, so rather fast it became a house for orphans, elderly, mentally disabled people, babies,... Soon more houses were taken in use to be able to help more people. What follows are some of the projects Dar Ul Sukun conducted in the several last years.
1000 Wheelchairs
The disabled people are often seen as a burden in the region of Sindh where a lot of people are very poor. Those disabled people often can't leave their houses because of their reduced mobility. The goal of the project was to deliver 1000 wheelchairs to those who were in need. The project was supported by UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO). By providing wheelchairs to these people, not only their mobility got better, but also their general quality of life. The increase in mobility led for some people to be able to become an entrepreneur so they were able to earn some money and become more independant!
Community Based Rehabilitation
Besides donating physical goods and equipment to the people in need, DUS is also trying to change the mindset about disabled people. Often people with disabilities end up in institutions, in which they get help in their daycare and rehabilitation while being able to sleep under a roof. BUT this means that those people are being seperated of society. Through promoting Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR), DUS tries to let people rehabilitate in their own community while stimulating them to participate to society as much as possible. DUS is involved in stimulating CBR in different neighbourhoods of Karachi and on the countryside of Sindh. More in specific, DUS is training volunteers in those communities to help them to involve people with disabilities as much as possible in society.
1969----------------------------------------->2015--------------------------------------------------->2017
Source
New Dar Ul Sukun building
The building in which Truus started her work became very fast too small, although it was a vila, there were too many people in need of help. So through the years renovation works were executed so more people could receive the help they needed. BUT this led to a building which became quite inefficiënt in its use. The building also ned some big renovations and initially it wasn't built sustainable at all. In 2014 it was decided that a new building would be built which would be more suitable to provide the specialized care and the specific rehabilitation programs. The new building was officially opened in February 2018:
Improving life skills of everyday living
As I'm an occupational therapist myself, I found it truely wonderfull that one of the goals of DUS is to help people to live more independently. Being able to live as independent as possible is truely very important. Imagine having a broken leg and you're not able to get your food yourself or do other small things. I bet that a lot of people are getting mad sooner or later because they lost their independance, although only for a short period of time. When I read in the DUS report of june 2018 that lessons are organized to help people with computers, I can only cheer that! Although it are lessons which seem very obvious to us as for example navigating on a computer, I'm sure it could help those people in becoming more independent. Who knows, these people will become Hivians one day aswell or maybe they are already on Hive?
Having fun
Everyone needs to take a break every now and than. For this aspect, I'll just show some pictures as a picture is worth a thousand words.
Source of those pictures: Source
Commemoration of World Braille day
Internation flower day
Food and spicy day
Tea party
Those are just a few of all the activities organised in DUS, it's already becoming a rather long article, so I won't sum up them all. I would rather spend some more words on the financial side of DUS.
Income statement
Source
The last income statement that I managed to find of the foundation sister Lemmens (which is funding DUS from the Netherlands and advising DUS) was the one of 2021. In this income statement, I found a few take-aways which are worth to share in my opinion, although I interpreted some information, so take it with a grain of salt:
- 98,8 % of all the spent money went to staff in DUS. In exact numbers, this means that €151.360 goes to about 60 staff. Since it's just the dutch foundation who's funding DUS, I don't know if there are other sources of money aswell. If you divide the total sum by 60 employees, you get about €2500 for every staffmember, which include probably some extra costs aswell. Based on information I found on the internet, this seems to be in a range of a 'normal' year wage in Pakistan. Feel free to help me with these assumptions if you're more knowledgable on this subject! Besides the total, there is no more division of the total amount, so I don't know exactly was is covered with it. This would have helped to increase the accountability and transparency.
Another important percentage is the total fundraising costs expressed as a percentage of the income from fundraising. In human language, this means as much as how much did it cost to achieve the fundraising. So the higher the percentage, the more of the money raised is used to collect the money. In this case the percentage is 0%. So this means that there aren't costs connected to collect the funds according to the financial statement.
Thirdly I read a sentence which states: 'Directors were unpaid through the year of 2021'. I know that in a lot of charities or public organizations, directors are often getting an incredible, unbelievable high wage. So when they are unpaid in the charity, it's a good sign that they definitly aren't overpaid.
Lastly there are no loans, guarantees or advance payments made to the directors. This seems quite logical to me, but I guess there are other examples where it's all possible.
To conclude the financial statement, I think there are some good indications that the money is getting well spend. Ofcourse I only tried to interpret the financial numbers with the available information. So, just take it for what it's worth.
Conclusion
In my experience as an occupational therapist, DUS is truely improving the quality of life of the people they are trying to help. They are trying to achieve this goal on multiple levels: by gifts (cfr. wheelchairs), by education of the surrounding (cfr. community based rehabilitation), by education of the people in need (cfr. improving life skills), by having fun (cfr. various activities), by...
I hope you enjoyed this article as much as I did in my reasearch / writing it!
Feel free to share in the comments your thoughts about DUS!