Bawaqar Zindagi is the community outreach program of Caravan of Life Pakistan Trust, providing free mental health services, with a particular focus on the disenfranchised community of Shah Faisal. The program was established in 2017 to increase access to free mental health services, and change the perspective of the community regarding mental health.
The Caravan of Life (CoL) Pakistan Trust is a manifestation of the personal journey of two of five siblings, Shaheen S. Ahmed and Khusro Karamat Elley.
A vision that now stands as a center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, under the banner of The Recovery House (TRH) and Bawaqar Zindagi. Their motivation to establish such an institution was and remains to be very personal, embodying a dream stemming from their personal experience of giving care to individuals with mental illnesses in their own family, in a city like Karachi where treatment options were few, community and societal support networks were non-existent; where mental institutions resembled prisons more than hospitals, and where mental illnesses were swept under the rug more often than not.
It was born out of the idea that families should no longer have to endure alone the devastating impact that mental illnesses too often exact; and is a consequence of watching their widowed mother care for two children with psychiatric disturbances, which would have been difficult in any society, but all the more in Pakistan.
CoL is also emblematic of their deep-rooted belief that people are not their illnesses. People who have serious mental illness are real people. They have all of the same needs as any other, and a mental illness does not strip them of their rights the rest are entitled to, and it certainly doesn’t change the fact that they are real people with real feelings. In order to help them in a society such as ours, services had to be created that would address all of their human, social and clinical needs.
This initiative is the very epitome of the solution for families facing similar challenges, and a passion and drive to become what they couldn’t avail back then. Initially laying grounds at The Recovery House, CoL expands its tireless efforts to serve the community and erase the disparities in provision of mental health services through Bawaqar Zindagi.
