Funding and support to a mobile healthcare project serving brick kiln workers and their families from 2005 to 2008.

Healthcare among Lahore's poorest communities

The Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Shelter (CLAAS) is a highly respected and decorated human rights organization in Pakistan. CLAAS has an established track record of:

• successfully defending citizens in legal cases, especially related to religious tolerance
• providing secure refuge for victims & support for their families
• providing legal aid to victims of physical and sexual abuse (women & children).

Through this work, they were alerted to the plight of the workers and their families in the thousand brick kilns in and around Lahore, Pakistan's crowded second city.

The workers are "bonded labourers"; they live with their families in the brick kilns themselves, tied to their owners through debt and intimidation. They suffer typically from scabies, respiratory tract infections, fever, anemia, diabetes and liver diseases. Most have no accessible or affordable healthcare available and no money to pay for it.

MAI has been supporting a mobile team of healthcare workers, employed by CLAAS, who travel to the brick kilns, frequently making timely healthcare interventions and bringing not only treatments but health education.

Currently, the project is under review as a means to develop self sustainability is considered.