Gilgit - The Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS) Gilgit-Baltistan has reached out to over 400 beneficiaries with prepaid mobile and internet cards aiming at providing assistance to those who could not have access to the market or unable to get connected with their families amid Covid-19 and consequent lockdown.
“We have introduced a unique mode of relief by providing prepaid mobile cards because communication barriers can cause mental health problems to the human’s lives during emergencies as like Covid-19” said the PRCS Gilgit-Baltistan’s Chairman Tariq Hussain Shah here yesterday.
He said that the PRCS Gilgit-Baltistan with support of its movement partners has been proactively involved to provide assistance to the vulnerable communities with a series of activities since the first day of the coronavirus emergency across the region.
“The PRCS GB has reached out to over 400 beneficiaries with prepaid mobile and internet communication cards and most of them were in dire need of credit as like Nazir to get connected with their dear and near once in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic and consequent lockdown” said PRCS GB Restoring Family Links (RFL) Manager Arif Hussain.
He said that the prepaid mobile cards assistance was one of the pilot projects under the joint Pakistan Red Crescent (PRCS) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Restoring Family Links (RFL) Program that was launched first ever in the Gilgit-Baltistan region to examine how it would be helpful to overcome the issues faced by the vulnerable communities amid Covid-19.
“Our primary beneficiaries for this program were mostly those who are unable to get access to the markets to recharge their mobile or internet accounts that included the persons with disabilities, people in isolations and quarantines, ultra-poor segments, journalists and university students who have online classes” Arif added.
He said that the prepaid mobile cards assistance remained an impactful project for both the donors and beneficiaries as it requires no heavy transportation and logistics expenditure and ensures transparency; protect self-respect and human dignity of the beneficiaries similar to the Cash Transfer Programing initiative.
