On 6th January 2026, we travelled with the HANDS Welfare Foundation into interior Sindh, a province in the south of Pakistan. The visit was kindly organised by my father’s former university friend and founder of HANDS, Dr Tanveer Ahmed.

We began at the charities headquarters just outside Karachi, where we learnt more about the foundation’s work. The campus is run entirely on solar power, with its own sewage system, reflecting HANDS’ wider focus on sustainable development. From there, we travelled to the HANDS base in Hyderabad, where we met members of the team and learnt about some of their projects, from solar power systems supplying homes across Pakistan to fantastic outreach work supporting women and families in rural communities.

We were then lucky to travel further into the countryside, joining the team on a visit to one of the villages they support. As we approached the village, we began to see the welcome that had been prepared for us all!

There were people everywhere. Children gathered along the lanes, musicians playing traditional Sindhi music and rose petals being thrown in every direction. As soon as we stepped out of the car, the villagers came flooding towards us, smiling, laughing and wanting to lead us further into the village. It felt like we had stepped into an old Bollywood film!

The narrow lanes were lined with simple, mud-coloured homes, and against them there was an extraordinary amount of colour. The women’s clothes were bright with deep reds, pinks, oranges, purples and indigos, and the whole village seemed to come alive around us. The children followed us through the streets, curious and excited, while people called us into their homes to show us what they had made.

There was a real sense of pride in the way the women presented their textiles. They wanted us to see everything! The embroidery they had been working on, the Rallis they had pieced together and the fabrics they had carefully kept. We were welcomed into the home of a woman known as Didi, who appeared to hold an important place within the community. My mother and I were given traditional Ajrakh stoles, while my father was presented with a Sindhi topi.

What struck me most was how keen everyone was to share their work. These weren't textiles being presented simply as things to be sold. They represented time, skill and knowledge, and the makers were clearly proud of them. There was an eagerness to explain them, unfold them, show us the stitching and point out different details.

The Rallis in particular were wonderful to see in this setting. Made from pieces of colourful fabric, they brought together contrasting colours, patterns and hand stitching in ways that felt completely individual. Some were bold and geometric, others softer and more irregular, but all showed the amount of work that had gone into making them. Seeing them in the homes where they had been made gave them a very different context from seeing them displayed in a shop.

What stayed with me most was the warmth and generosity of the people we met. Despite having very little, there was such a strong sense of community and an incredible enthusiasm to share what they had made. We were strangers arriving from another country, yet people welcomed us into their homes as though we were part of the family.

The day we had thanks to HANDS is honestly one I will never forget. There was something incredibly humbling about being welcomed so openly into a community living so simply and with very little material goods. It made me think about how easily we can overlook what we already have. The people we met seemed to take real joy in the simple things - their homes, their families, their communities and the skills they had learnt from those before them. They were so proud to share what they had, rather than focused on what they didn't.

I think that is what stayed with me most from the day. It was a reminder to appreciate the things that can so easily become ordinary to us, and to value the people, traditions and skills that give our lives meaning. The textiles were a beautiful part of that, but the lesson was much bigger than the textiles themselves.

Hopefully one day we will be able to showcase some of the villagers work at Rooh.