KARACHI: In Pakistan, around 40 percent of the total population dwells in poverty mostly in the rural areas where the populace is deprived of basic necessities for their survival including food, clothing and shelter.

The other side of the story also elucidates that lack of education facilities have gradually increased the rate of the out-of-the school children in Pakistan. Whereas clean drinking water, proper medical facilities in the underprivileged areas shows no good sign.

In such a horrendous situation where malnutrition is ruling all over in the rural areas and people are dying due to extreme poverty, one Canada-based organization Hoopo have kicked-off a tremendous journey to get rid of the poverty in the villages by promoting a sense of entrepreneurship among the villagers, farmers and a lay man.

Canadian organization Hoopo founded by Naseer Qureshi who is also the President of the organization is leading an exceptional initiative to support the grief-stricken people in the villages of Pakistan to combat poverty through startups, businesses and the entrepreneurship in the long-run making them self-reliant to earn a better livelihood for themselves and their dependents to achieve a bigger goal of developing a sustainable society.

Nadeem Abbas Operations Manager Hoopo along with Amiti Foundation Global COO Saad Hasnain recently visited Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam. University faculties and research fellows, in collaboration with UK-based GSFN, Farm Carbon Toolkit, and Hoopo Canada, are working to develop a Carbon Calculator aimed at mapping villages across Pakistan. Under the leadership of Dean Dr. Manzoor, the team shared Hoopo Carbon Neutral Villages' strategic plan with Saad Hasnain, COO of Amity Global Foundation. Following a successful visit to Tandojam, the Hoopo team headed to Naushera Feroze, another district in Interior Sindh province. Here, with Hoopo's support, a model village was established, offering essential amenities to its residents. These efforts not only fulfilled the villagers' basic needs but also paved the way for economic opportunities, aligning with Hoopo's mission for sustainable progress and community development.

Soon after Tandojam visit, Hoopo team heads off to visit another district in Interior Sindh province ‘Naushera Feroze’ where with the support of Hoopo a model village has been established with all basic amenities through which the dwellers of the village are not only fulfilling their necessities but have also opened the doors for earning with the help of all the initiatives undertaken by the Hoopo for sustainable growth and development.

The amenities provided to the villagers in the model village by the Hoopo includes a properly developed house, separate room for education classes where the students are being taught different subjects including English, Maths, Drawings, Agriculture and Plantation with the help of Google classroom, poultry farm, bio-gas plant, biochar moringa trees, clean water filter plant, electricity generation through solar plates, provision of five cattles to each of the seven houses located in the village with an intent to ensure sustainable development and the concept of entrepreneurship and the inauguration of Masjid.

The University’s scholars are playing a vital role in creating awareness among the masses regarding reduction of carbon, development of carbon neutral model villages and plant for prosperity initiatives of Hoopo to make a clean and greener environment. Not only turning a greener environment but also on the larger side, students are being educated about how to earn money through plantation and on the agriculture side farmers are being trained to create employment opportunities by growing a ‘Biochar Moringa Pitcher Tree’ and using it in the most sustainable manner with proper care of the plant that will certainly improve soil fertility.

Moreover, Hoopo Canada is also offering scholarships and stipends to the University students, faculty and the underprivileged communities for taking proper care of plants across the board.

It could be said without any doubt that the villagers of Shah Baig Lashari Goth in Naushero Feroze seemed happy and found themselves busy in making the most of the resources developed by the Hoopo Canada in their model village. It was witnessed during the entire visit that the residents of the village were eager to learn more about plantation and how to create their own business startups with the help of Agriculture and its aligned methods.

In addition to this, the incredible journey of Hoopo resulted into fantabulous performance in the year 2023 where thru the support of the volunteers 65 villages in Pakistan witnesses a remarkable change where the deprived societies were uplifted and their vulnerable conditions changed dynamically.

Hoopo created more than 80 employment opportunities to support the penniless with an intent to turn them into self-sufficient. In 2023 Hoopo successfully raised over $75,000 CAD in investments and $85,000 in donations which tends to be a huge aid to Hoopo’s vision of ‘Redefining Charity from Pity to Paychecks’!

Moreover, in the series of great initiatives undertaken by the Hoopo, they assisted cattle farmers with opening their business bank accounts and established them as Very Small Entrepreneurs (VSEs). Subsequently with the right implementation of such programmes the grief-stricken sect became apt to get rid of perpetual poverty cycles with Hoopo’s ‘Cattle Livestock Fattening Investment Product’.

Previously, these farmers would take loans, with interest rates as high as 20-60%,which they are never able to pay off. In this investment cycle every VSE received1.5x the salary when compared to the average cattle farmer in Pakistan and 2.5xmore salary when compared against those with only 1-2 years of similar experience.

Yet another time, amidst Eid-ul-Adha, Hoopo has taken enormous and daring steps to help the underprivileged communities through its another implausible initiative of distributing organic meat to 4,500 families across 60 villages. Storing 840 meat packages in solar-powered freezers for weekly distribution to combat famine.

Taking ahead the vision of sustainable agricultural practices, Hoopo established two carbon-neutral hen farms in the villages where a huge number of hens were raised (~770). One of Hoopo farms have achieved a monthly average egg production of 2,400eggs, indicating robust health and productivity of the hens whereas, since the inception of this initiative, a total of 2,000 eggs have been farmed out of which 1,700 eggs have been sold.

A vigorous refinement in Hoopo’s Plant for Prosperity program resulted into the establishment of 5 SMART Agriculture Education campuses across NaushahroFeroze, Hyderabad, and Islamabad.

This educational initiative is designed to advance agricultural knowledge and practices where Hoopo introduced 10 virtual teacher positions and 4 local teacher assistant roles, specifically for female educators, to bolster quality education and also the teaching workforce mainly linked with the Agriculture and Climate Change subjects.

Furthermore, Hoopo also developed two nurseries, one in Sindh and one in Punjab, contributing to the biodiversity of the regions and supporting local ecosystems. A significant milestone was reached with over 10,000 Moringa trees planted till to-date, giving a breakthrough to its struggle for ensuring environmental sustainability and reforestation.

Interestingly, whatever elucidate above is just a start of Hoopo’s high-minded journey towards uplifting the underprivileged communities by providing them all the tools and equipment’s to achieve a sustainable position in the society where they could easily earn a better livelihood for themselves and their loved ones.

This absolutely inspirational working of Hoopo will open countless doors of employment, earning through plantation, better education facilities and the concept of the create carbon neutral societies thru entrepreneurship will yield fruitful results in future.

Later, the villagers thanked Hoopo Canada team for their consistent efforts and sincere intentions in supporting the deprived communities in getting rid of the poverty and educating them to earn a sustainable livelihood for their families.

Published in The Daily National Courier, March, 18 2024

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