HANDS journey of evolution started in 1979 when Prof. A.G. Billoo - Founder Chairman of HANDS and his colleagues went beyond the boundaries of the public sector hospital to witness the problems of people of the remote rural areas.. They realized the pathetic condition of the community, especially women and children, deprived of all the basic facilities - health, education and basic civic facilities. They formed a voluntary group and started working in a village 45 km away from their hospital (Civil Hospital Karachi)

HANDS Glorious History

with a clear vision of improving living conditions of the inhabitants of rural areas especially health (as per WHO's criteria, mentioned in Alma Ata Declaration). This initiation of activities was from the platform of "Health and Nutrition Project". Thereafter a unique primary health care system was developed with community participation in rural Karachi. A few comparatively educated and committed boys and girls from the village were provided training to form a volunteer group called Community Based Organization (CBO). People started observing a change within few years and the results of the program were enough to open the eyes of nearby villagers. The development of the organization is divided in following five phases:

1. Philanthropist phase-1979 to 1993HANDS initially worked without formal donors and the main funding source was the philanthropists. The first PHC center was established at Memon Goth in 1980 and then this volunteer group moved to other villages and in 1982, two more PHC centers were established at Dur Muhammad Village and Saleh Muhammad Village and by the end of 1992 HANDS started taking shape of a formal organization.

2. Formal Organization Phase - 1993 to 1995This was the period when HANDS got itself formally registered and received its first formal project and established its office in Karachi. The vision of organization was defined as “Healthy Educated & Prosperous Pakistan” and the mission was “to promote basic health, primary education, income generation opportunities and development of institutions to empower the underprivileged communities”. The first formal donor funded project was ”Development of Health Structure (DEH)” funded by the Trust for Voluntary Organization - TVO. The target population of the project was 24 villages of Karachi rural and its initial duration was 3 years and with this project HANDS annual budget reached to Rs. 03 million and program interventions extended from 03 to 24 villages.

3. HANDS Expanded Program Phase - 1995 to 1997HANDS first time entered in the education sector through Participatory Development Program (PDP) under Social Action Program (SAP) of Government of Pakistan, funded for the promotion of health and education. First regional office was established at Hala to implement this project. In 1996 organization had attained 02 regular offices and 05 projects with an annual budget of 07 million rupees. 4. Integrated rural development Phase 1998 - 2006Several donors approached and funded HANDS in this phase as the organization gradually gained momentum through its activities/interventions. At this stage the organization went in to an agreement with City District Government to adopt the secondary health care facility at village Jamkanda District Malir (Now Bin Qasim Town). A second office in Karachi rural was established and overall 03 offices became functional. HANDS expanded its programs from Health and Education sector to Water & Sanitation, Micro Credit, Gender & Development, and secondary care facilities. The services of the organization scaled upto upper Sindh and lower Punjab after agreeing to do a project of capacity building on Family planning in partnership with Key Social Marketing. The areas included Sukkur, Ghotki, Dadu, Umerkot, Mithi, Sadiqabad, Raheem yar khan, Khanpur etc. With this extension 05 more regular offices were established and altogether there were 08 offices. HANDS reached to total 15 projects with annual budget of Rs. 40 million by June 2006.

5. Horizontal Growth Phase 2007 - 2011 This was the rapid organization development phase. HANDS after signing FALAH a 05 years duration reproductive health project funded by Population Council and USAID, added to the organizational net work of offices. The organization extended its offices from Sindh province, to Punjab province, Federal Capital Islamabad and Balochistan province. There were overall nine district offices in Sindh and 03 towns of Karachi which included, Shikarpur, Jaccobabad, Ghotki, Larkana, and Jafferabd and Quetta (Balochistan). Packard Foundation funded an initial 03 years project MARVI which was implemented in district Umerkot. HANDS after 33 years has developed into one of the largest Non Profit Organization of the country and depicts an excellent model of community development. This integrated model comprise of key programs of Health Promotion, Education & Literacy, Livelihood Enhancement, Social Mobilization, Disaster Management, Gender & Development, Human Resource & Institutional Development, Infrastructure Development Energy Water & Shelter, Information Communication Resource and Advocacy, Monitoring Evaluation & Research and Social Marketing.

HANDS played a major role for relief, early recovery and rehabilitation through TAMEER strategy in post flood 2010 period. The flood experience further strengthened the organization. Disaster Management program emerged as one of the lead program of the organization. HANDS later developed the Community Based Disaster Risk Reduction (CBDRR) strategy. Medico International (German organization), all the UN agencies and DFID (UKAID) were the key partners in flood related projects. Under the CBDRR strategy 02 District Disaster Risk Reduction centers were constructed at Thatta for southern Sindh and at Sukkur for Northern Sindh. In addition to these 08 more District Disaster Risk Reduction Centers are in process of construction. HANDS contribution to the disaster affected population was more than Rs. 05 billions in cash & kind in 2010 - 2012. HANDS Alhumdulillah has now a network of 29 offices across the country and has access to more than 25 million population of nearly 42000 villages in 29 districts. These offices are supported by 3531 medium and small size organizations network in 03 provinces that is Punjab, Sindh, and Balochistan. The number of projects managed by the organization has gone upto 94 projects, with the annual turnover of 4696 million in cash & kin. It has directly benefited more than 4.2 million population in 2011-12.

6. Institutionalization Phase 2012 onward and vision 2020 HANDS has developed its long term strategy 2020, through a detail consultation process which involved community based volunteers, all levels of professional staff and the volunteers of governing board. HANDS 2020 strategy reflects the planning and future commitment of the organization. The organization has planned to scale it's intervention horizontally to 138,000 villages, 75 districts, 69 million population and vertically to a university of Community Development supported by 40 Institutes of Community Development. This process brought not only strategic changes in the organization but has also broadened the vision and mission.