A Link to Prosperity!

Lallu is one of marginalized village in UC Koga Ambela of district Buner. The Village consists of 300 households and its population is 2,700. It is located 3 km away from the concrete road and about 3.5 km away from Ambela main market. The local residents are dependent on Agriculture and livestock rearing while illiteracy multiplies their vulnerability.

The Livelihood and Small Scale Community Physical Infrastructure Project (LACIP) started its social mobilization activities in November, 2012 and formed Community Organizations (COs) and Village Organization (VO) in the village. Due to this awareness and formation of community organization, the community is able to utilize their resources & potential for the development of area.  The social mobilization and organizing people into COs (Community Organization) was a new and unique experience for the people of the village and it helped them consolidate their potentials and capabilities to strengthen their social bonds and work collectively

The CO in the village identified and prioritized their issues through Development plans and among different issues, Link Road scheme was highlighted asmajor issue ofvillage as other issues are associatedto it. The CO passed a resolution and requested the EPS-LACIP to provide a scheme to the CO for the construction of Link Road. The LACIP team approved a scheme amount of PKR: 9,112,459 with 15% as community contribution to construct the Link Road. Prior to the construction ofRoad all the households in the village were facing accessibility issues being uneven, unpaved, steep slopes and narrow road. The people of the area were not able to carry their patients in emergency cases to hospital well in time byvehicle and most of them breathed their last in the way

 One of the major immediate impacts of this intervention is that “due to this link road the community has now enhanced access to livelihood opportunities, health & education facilities as well as the most marginalized group like elders, pregnant women and children time wastage has been minimized and labor cost has also been decreased. Prior to this scheme initiation, majority of the locals were bringing daily utility items to their homes through shoulder. Now local shops are established which has created ease for the local people through availability of daily utility items             

The price issue has been resolved as the local shopkeepers were charging high price due to high transportation cost. Now daily utility items are available at normal market rates. Mukamil Shah while narrating the scene says that "I use to bring Cement bag on 300 rupee’s prior to construction of this link road for home construction now the cost reduced to only 30 rupees per bag, I am thankful to EPS-PPAF-KFW for their nice support they had saved our time, labour & money. Another interesting fact regarding livelihood is that local people had purchased two vehicle for local transport & thirty motorcycle/bikes for local conveyance".

He further told that "due to high transportation cost none ofcontractor was ready to construct a school invillage. Our children were unable to avail high education as three times school tender wascancelled due to lack of interest of contractor. Now the tender has been approved & awarded for construction due to paved link road.

In context of access to health services there was no referral mechanism for high risk patients especially in case of complicated delivery and in such cases mortality rate was high. Now due to construction of link road the local residents are able to take their patients to Tehsil Head Quarter Hospital and Rural Health Center, which has reduced mortality & morbidity rates.

The newly constructed link road is benefitting 300 households directly and almost 400 households indirectly as they also use this facility.