Seen & Heard is a collection of recent headlines in the news about our world, our work, and the spaces and places in between. In each post we also share a list of job openings at Acumen Fund and in our sector. Seen & Heard appears twice a month[.....]
Across Pakistan, uncommon heroes are arising in response to the worst natural devastation in the country’s history. One of them is Ali Siddiqui, head of the JS group, a financial services conglomerate employing 23,000 with stakes in companies in transportation, agriculture, energy and the like. Though only 33 years[.....]
At a camp for flood victims in Rhojan, Pakistan, we meet a man named Humayan who is standing beneath his USAID-issued plastic tarpaulin with 16 family members on a 100-plus degree morning. He tells us he is a tractor driver and earned good money before the floods, but the tractor [.....]
In the late afternoon sun, we visit a camp called Kandhkot in Sindh, organized and run fully by the Mahvesh and Jahangir Siddiqui Foundation. Fields of green sprawl in the distance, but the 100 tents and 820 individuals inhabit a patch of dry dirt. The tents stand one after another,[.....]
“Mwambie asiingie huko!“ screamed the woman in the marketplace, Swahili for “don’t let her go in there!”. The “her” she was referring to was me and the “there” was a public toilet. After stepping into the facility, which was a local municipal toilet, I realized the concerns of the woman, and almost instantly wished I[.....]