Disaster survivors in Haiti and Pakistan benefit from proceeds of UN football match

Hundreds of youths who survived last year’s massive earthquake in Haiti and more than 1,000 women displaced by floods in Pakistan will benefit from funds raised in a United Nations-organized football match in aid of post-disaster reconstruction work in the two countries.

Some $170,000 in proceeds from the “Match against Poverty” – held in Greece last December – will support the reconstruction of sports centres for 400 youngsters in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince and the city of Léogâne.

An equal amount will help up to 1,200 women-headed households in rural Muzafargarh in Pakistan’s Punjab province, the UN Development Fund (UNDP), which organized the fundraiser, said in a press release yesterday.

The Haiti-based project involves community members in cash-for-work to rehabilitate sports facilities. Through its different components, the project targets groups that were affected by the quake and who still live in precarious conditions. The project will be integrated into an ongoing programme that uses sports activities to promote conflict resolution.

The UN Volunteers (UNV) programme is supporting the initiative by promoting the values of volunteering and civic engagement in the community.

“The match funds will be used to complement our ongoing efforts to include youth in our activities in affected and damaged neighbourhoods where we are already working to facilitate return of people displaced by the earthquake,” said Jessica Faieta, UNDP’s Haiti senior country director.

The project in Pakistan aims to achieve a 30 per cent increase in income and assets of vulnerable women in Muzafargarh district by providing them with cash subsidies and training to start or build up small businesses. The region was one of the worst affected by the massive floods that inundated large swathes of Pakistan for months in summer of last year.

The home-based enterprises are expected to include crop production, storage and marketing, dairy farming, livestock production and trading, grocery shops, embroidery centres and agriculture supply stores.

“The initiative is helping women to organize themselves into groups and to establish home-based businesses to create sources of additional income and to generate productive assets for the households,” said Toshihiro Tanaka, UNDP’s Pakistan country director.

“Though the amount is modest, using it to promote community enterprise development will ensure every penny is targeted for maximum impact in restoring the livelihoods of vulnerable households affected by floods,” he added.