Free Welfare and Legal Support for Nawabshah

Nawabshah, officially the headquarters of Shaheed Benazirabad District, sits in the middle of Sindh where cotton, sugarcane and banana fields meet the railway line to Karachi. People looking for an NGO in Nawabshah that hears them out without charging anything can turn to Peace and Humanity Welfare Organization (PHWO). We are voluntary, non-political and non-sectarian, and every service we offer is free.

We want to be clear from the first line: PHWO has no office in Nawabshah or anywhere in Shaheed Benazirabad. Our one and only office is the head office in Larkana. You can reach us from Nawabshah, Sakrand, Daur or Qazi Ahmed on the website, by messaging PHWO from a free PHWO account, or through a volunteer.

Life and work in Shaheed Benazirabad

The district’s economy runs on farming and the mills that process its crops. Sugar mills, cotton ginning factories and flour mills employ thousands of men for part of the year, and many women pick cotton by hand in the hot months. Work is seasonal, wages are low, and a single bad crop or an illness can push a family into debt with a landlord or a shopkeeper.

Sindhi is spoken in most homes. Urdu is common in the city, and the district also has well-established Punjabi, Baloch and Seraiki-speaking families.

What the census tells us

The 2023 Census counted 1,845,102 people in Shaheed Benazirabad District, on 4,502 square kilometres. The population rose from 1,613,506 in 2017, an average growth of 2.27 percent a year. About a third of residents, 32.4 percent, live in towns. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics puts the district in the 50 to 60 percent literacy band, and among the districts where between 45 and 60 percent of children aged 5 to 16 are out of school. That is a reminder of how many young people here are working instead of studying.

Needs we hear about most

• Study and work devices. Students at Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University and the Peoples University of Medical and Health Sciences often need a laptop to keep up. Young men looking for online or delivery work need a working phone.
• Ration for daily-wage and seasonal workers between harvests.
• Debt that has grown from advances taken for treatment, weddings or seed.
• Medicine, rent and school fees.

To apply, go to Request help. We ask for a live photo of the applicant. Your case is verified by volunteers and then assessed; if the need is real and can be met, help is organised. No amount or date is ever promised.

Free legal aid in Nawabshah

Family disputes make up most of the legal requests PHWO receives, and Nawabshah is no different: women seeking khula, mothers asking for maintenance, and parents fighting over custody. These cases are heard in the family courts at the Shaheed Benazirabad district courts.

Fill in the free legal aid form and tell us your next hearing date. A police FIR is not a condition for applying. Our volunteer advocates put custody and urgent dates at the top of the pile. We cannot guarantee that a lawyer will be found for every case or that the court will rule a certain way, but we will be straight with you about your options, including the District Legal Empowerment Committee chaired by the district judge.

Heat and floods

Nawabshah is one of the hottest cities in Pakistan in May and June, and the 2022 floods hit the district hard. PDMA Sindh’s report of 13 September 2022 listed 59 union councils affected and 951 kilometres of road damaged in Shaheed Benazirabad, the longest stretch of damaged road of any district in that report. Villages lost mud houses, stored grain and livestock. PHWO accepts requests for help with disaster losses and treats emergency relief as one of its eight programmes.

PDMA Sindh listed 77 relief camps in the district in mid-September 2022, sheltering 14,688 people, and the district’s 951 kilometres of damaged road were among the worst totals in Sindh. Farm families around Sakrand, Daur and Qazi Ahmed who lost cotton and cane that season are among those who may still be repaying loans.

Give or volunteer from Nawabshah

University students, teachers and lawyers in Nawabshah can join as volunteers. Your tasks might be visiting an applicant’s home, explaining the form to someone who cannot read, or running a fundraising drive among classmates. Nawabshah volunteers receive a certificate and letters recording both our gratitude and their experience.

If you would rather give, donate money or goods, or sponsor a case. Every rupee given as Zakat or Sadaqah is passed on to deserving people. Farmers can use the Zakat calculator to think through what is due on savings and gold; for Ushr on crops, ask a scholar you trust.

Nawabshah parents seeking a proposal may register on the free Rishta Desk. Families of any religion can register, each profile is checked with a live selfie and reviewed by PHWO staff, and you alone decide whether to go ahead.

Public services in Nawabshah (Shaheed Benazirabad) you can also use

• Peoples Medical College Hospital (PUMHSW)Public teaching hospital in Nawabshah.
• District & Sessions Court Shaheed BenazirabadFamily, civil and criminal courts; District Legal Empowerment Committee for people who cannot afford counsel.
• BISP tehsil office NawabshahBenazir Kafaalat and education stipends; helpline 0800-26477.
• Round-the-clock emergency linesPolice 15, ambulance 1122, Edhi 115, Sindh women's helpline 1094.

These are public or independent services, listed to help you. They are not part of PHWO.

Frequently asked questions