Patient Welfare Society – Booni, Chitral
The Patient Welfare Society – Booni was established in 1995 to help poor patients through provision of financial assistance and health care support and also helping them to access hospital at village level. The society is currently based in Mastuj, Chitral and is aiming at expanding its services to other villages. The society has 300 registered members paying Rs.50/- as membership fee per month. It has an executive board comprising of 12 members of which 40% are women.
During the past 15 years, the society has spent Rs.800,000 – 1,000,000 worth of funds in helping under privileged patients to bear their major health care expenses for blood transfusion, medication, inpatient care, and provision of ambulance services to commute the patients to city hospitals. These funds were generated through contribution from members and other donors / philanthropists.
A major challenge faced by the welfare society has been mobilisation of financial resources and securing sufficient funds to meet the major health care needs of people living in extreme poverty. The office bearers arrange for resource mobilisation campaign by approaching donors, philanthropists, local community and the government agencies. However, it has not been effective due to lack of leadership and resource mobilisation skills to convince donors and others to contribute. The society also requires major support to strengthen its capacity for developing funding proposals, enhancing good governance practices and mobilising community and volunteers to serve its mission.
‘The Hum Qadam trainings have made a great difference to our organization and outputs. The trainings provided us the opportunity to rethink our strategies and the way we work. The training on local resource mobilisation provided us specific tools which helped us increase our membership. The leadership training encouraged more women to become members in the Society’s executive body. The staff members, trained through the project, have gained sufficient knowledge, skills and confidence to performing their duties more effectively.’
President, the Patient Welfare Society – Booni
The Patient Welfare Society is keen on encouraging more women to join the society as members, volunteers and employees at key leadership positions. To inspire more women to join, a woman has recently been appointed as the Vice President of the society. The society believes that the learning from the Hum Qadam trainings will help them in further refining their strategies for resource mobilisation, improving the leadership structure and practices and effectively engaging the community to achieve the long-term goal.