This morning, as I worked on a lecture for the final class of the Winter term, I did what I try to do: listen to NPR's Morning Edition with Steve Inskeep. As usual, I was doing a bad job at each task: listening and writing. I heard Inskeep start talking about a woman who had been shot dead in Karachi - big surprise, right:
Gunmen killed a woman in Pakistan yesterday. The news stories about this
were formulaic for Pakistan, she was killed in a customary manner by assassins on motorcycles who rolled away with impunity. What's remarkable is the way she lived. Parveen Rehman came from Karachi, one of the world's largest cities. She helped thousands of poor people obtain basic services.
The name 'Parveen Rehman' barely rang a bell. But as the story progressed, the bell became louder:
When I first met her in 2008, she told me she studied to become an architect, but doubted the value of the upscale buildings she learned to design. [Note: Inskeep had written about her in his recent book, Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi.]
PARVEEN REHMAN: So when I graduated, I was very confused. So I worked with a famous architect and I ran from the office without taking my case.
INSKEEP: You really had a job and you just walked out the office one day?
REHMAN: Yes.
INSKEEP: What kind of work were you doing?
REHMAN: Designing a hotel and I didn't understand what I was doing. And I said that since I don't need such a lot of money, so do designing and waste my time on this, when I know that who was this serving.
INSKEEP: Rehman went to work instead for the Orangi Pilot Project, named after a zone where more than a million people live; mostly poor, mostly in illegally built houses, mostly beyond the reach of government services. [Note: she headed the OPP at the time of her murder.]
She became a protege of the organization's founder, a man who encouraged poor people to help themselves - for example, by digging their own sewers or supporting schools.
Note: listen to the interview.
'Digging their own sewers" did it for me. I had met and spoken with Parveen Rehman at the Stockholm World Water Week meeting - 2005, I believe - where she gave a stirring talk about how she had flummoxed the Karachi powers-that-be and mobilized the poor people of Orangi to build sewers. I don't think there was anyone in that auditorium who was not amazed and inspired by what this woman had accomplished. She took many questions.
When asked whether there were problems dealing with the strong anti-female culture (especially women in the professions) in Pakistan, she replied with a smile, "I didn't have a problem."
She mentioned one amusing incident. As an architect she was skilled at drafting and drawing. But she had little or no training in engineering, especially designing pipe systems. So she initiated a self-study program. After a while she felt confident and went to see the city office responsible for sewers. She was quickly dismissed as a 'little girl' but managed to see some engineers and explain her plan to bring sewers to Orangi. They were highly skeptical and about to blow her off when she pulled out her detailed plans for the sewer system, specifications and all. Their attitude promptly changed, and they realized with whom they were dealing. No more 'little girl' stuff!
I recall stopping her right after her talk and, among other things, asking her if she ever thought she might be in the USA where I could come up with the funds to get her to New Mexico to address the University and the community. She smiled and said she'd like that, but that she had so much work yet to do in Oranji. But she promised to think about it. We swapped a few emails after that, but we never ran across each other again. But I still would occasionally think about her and her work. I still wonder at all she and her 'poor people' accomplished.
Her killers? Likely assassins from one of the many groups that were threatened by her and all she accomplished. I'll be surprised if her killers are caught, but this story has a lot of international interest so the police may actually investigate aggressively.
I thought today's quote apropos. Parveen Rehman didn't change the world, but did she ever create many ripples; tidal waves are more like it. And she enlisted many in her efforts. Will she be missed!
"I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples." - Mother Teresa
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