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Pakistan has to deal with a crisis every year during the peak of summer. The first one that people see is on the thermometers and news tickers (hot weather, heat warnings, and hospital wards overflowing with heatstroke victims). The second is no less dangerous and noisier: families who are unable to get proper nutrition while their bodies are depleted of strength and fluids by the heat. Hunger and heatwave Pakistan conditions don't occur in isolation for millions of low-income Pakistanis. They occur simultaneously in the same house, on the same searing afternoon, and they exacerbate one another to an even greater degree, making it more difficult to survive.
It is the double crisis that charitable organization in Pakistan, such as Saylani Welfare International Trust, are striving to solve these situations with dastarkhwan and relief camps.
Heat Becomes a Public Health Emergency
Each year, Pakistan's summers have become more lethal. Karachi experiences daytime temperatures in the 40°C – 50°C range during May and June, and the heat is even more intense due to the high humidity of about 60% – 75%. In the recent heatwave events, thousands of heatstroke cases have been arriving at government hospitals, and it has been overwhelming the Emergency Departments, which were never built to cater to such crises.
The impact on the people has been devastating. The heatwave in Pakistan during 2024 resulted in the death of more than 568 people and hospitalization of over 7,900 people, including higher temperatures of 49°C in some parts of Sindh. This pattern has continued nearly every year over the past few years. A long and early heat wave resulted in temperatures 5-8 degrees higher than normal for the whole country and forced millions of people to endure power outages as long as sixteen hours, which denied them any cooling relief.
Why Hunger Makes the Heat More Dangerous?
When discussing heatwaves, what is frequently overlooked is the close relationship between heatwaves and food insecurity. A body in poor nutritional condition will have less capacity to handle the extreme heat. Dehydration occurs more quickly. Electrolyte imbalances get worse. It will take longer to recover if a person has not eaten properly for several days.
This connection has already been a concern in Pakistan before the last set of heat waves. The impacts of flooding and drought are worsened by heatwaves and are likely to drive food insecurity on a scale of millions of people in dozens of districts, warns the aid organizations. The crisis of drinking water and the crisis of food are compounded when a family must decide between the two. Hunger and heatwave Pakistan are not two emergencies taking place simultaneously; it's one emergency with two faces.
That's why it's important to have effective relief work during the summer that involves more than just water. This is why Saylani has created its Saylani Welfare summer relief. Saylani Welfare's Two-Front Response ensures that you are always at the right place with the right message.
Eating a hundred thousand at a time, every day!
The heart of Saylani as a food charity organizations is its Dastarkhwan program, which is a free daily meal service and is one of the biggest food distribution programs of its kind in the country. Today, Saylani Welfare is providing free meals to underprivileged families in over 1138 areas of Pakistan, which benefits more than 450000 families daily. This equates to approximately 1.5 million lives served every year, and about 250,000 under the Dastarkhwan initiative.
This is food distribution in heatwave conditions on a scale that can help a large number of people. In the summer, when it's more difficult to find a job outside, a family receiving a guaranteed daily meal can be the deciding factor between a family staying afloat or going hungry on top of being exhausted from the heat.
Relief Delivery
In addition to food, Saylani has been working on the ground in direct response to heatwaves. Saylani Welfare has organized special Heatstroke Relief Pakistan Camps in the summer months in high-risk areas of Karachi in cooperation with the city's power company, K-Electric. The camps offer water, shade, and medical guidance to those affected by extreme heat and fill the critical need for so many vulnerable residents of the community: shade, clean drinking water, and immediate medical advice when symptoms of heatstroke start to appear.
What kind of changes might be required?
The summers are not going to get cooler in Pakistan. The forecast for the upcoming years indicates that the frequency of extreme heat days will rise, the length of heatwave seasons will grow, and power and water systems will remain under pressure. In that regard, the efforts of organisations working in heatstroke relief Pakistan and food security aren't a seasonal gesture, but a crucial facility being established for Pakistan's most vulnerable.