Puanani Forbes, Fatima Naqvi, Amara Saeed, MA '02
An Unexpected Reunion: Relief Work Rejoins Heller Trio
Left to right: Fatima Naqvi, Amara Saeed, and Puanani Forbes.
Last year's massive earthquake in Pakistan, Kashmir, and northern India left 73,000 dead and two million homeless, ripping apart countless families. But it also reunited three Heller alumnae whose passion to help led them to join the global relief effort.
Puanani Forbes, MA '02, Fatima Naqvi, MA '02, and Amara Saeed, MA '02, were close friends as students in Heller's Sustainable International Development Program. Though from opposite ends of the world, they forged a bond that lasted beyond graduation and shared an unshakable desire to help others.
For Forbes, a native Arizonan, it was a five-month visit to Nepal that convinced her she wanted to work internationally. For Naqvi and Saeed, who returned to their home country of Pakistan after graduating in 2002, the humanitarian issues were pressing.
Heller had prepared them all for demanding work on issues without easy solutions. Forbes took a job first with the World Food Program's Food for Education Program in Afghanistan just after the fall of the Taliban and later joined the Emergencies and Protection Unit of Save the Children. Saeed founded Strategic Solutions, a consulting organization involved in issues ranging from program evaluations to strategic planning and humanitarian responses. Naqvi became a humanitarian manager with Oxfam GB, a development, advocacy, and relief agency working to put an end to poverty worldwide.
A world shaken
Then one of the most devastating earthquakes ever hit, and the three friends responded - separately, immediately, and wholeheartedly. "The earthquake was something very close to me - not just another news item one would read about, feel depressed about for a couple of hours, and then forget," says Saeed, who during the earthquake's immediate aftermath helped support her aunt and uncle - whose child was trapped beneath the rubble. Within twenty-four hours, Saeed and her husband had contacted friends and family, put together a team of twenty volunteers and ten truckloads of relief goods, and rushed toward one of the hardest-hit areas.With Oxfam GB, Naqvi was also on the ground in Pakistan, providing plastic sheeting and tools so that thousands of people who were "trembling in wet clothes in the rain and snow" could quickly build temporary shelters to protect themselves from the harsh winter weather.
As part of Save the Children's emergency response team, Forbes was soon on a flight toward the earthquake zone, where she would help distribute food, tents, blankets, and cooking utensils to affected families and supply medicines and meals to two field hospitals. She contacted her friends to let them know she was on her way.
"We were brought back together by the nature of our work," says Naqvi. In the evenings, after she and Forbes finished work for their agencies, they joined Saeed to collect, sort, repack, and ship supplies to different areas of Pakistan.
"We never imagined we would get an opportunity to work together like this after we graduated," says Saeed, "but as we've grown professionally the three of us have been able to share experiences, ideas, and thoughts."
Naqvi, grateful to be able to use skills and knowledge she gained at Heller in a constructive way, says, "The most important thing to me was that, while the whole country was shell-shocked and devastated by the tragedy, we were able to go out and make a difference despite our heavy hearts."