This is the story of Reshma, a story of empowerment and overcoming oppression in Pakistan.
This photo (left) of Reshma and James Francis, taken on February, 2, 2014, shows how far the Catholic Church has come in promoting human dignity, mutual respect, and gender harmony in Pakistan.
Reshma belongs to the Parkari Koli tribal community of south-east Pakistan. She is totally illiterate and has suffered the indignity and oppression of being an agricultural bonded labourer working in appalling conditions for powerful landlords. Reshma is Hindu. She is married and has three children. When asked about her age, she replies not from vanity but from total lack of knowledge, “God knows”.
James Francis is administrator of St. Elizabeth Hospital in Hyderabad. He is executive secretary of the Diocesan Medical Board, member of the board of governors of the Catholic Centre of Academic Excellence, and a member of the Rotary Club of Hyderabad City, and more. He is from the Urdu-speaking Catholic community of Sindh province in Pakistan.
A lawyer and accountant, James Francis, has positive and effective personal and business contacts in the multi-cultural and multi-religious reality of Hyderabad. James is 55, married with four children and is a happy grandfather.
The photo was taken at Jhirruk, 35kms south of Hyderabad, when deeds of ownership and possession for new houses were handed to 14 families who had been made homeless during floods. Reshma and James are board members of the Bethlehem Shelter Society which legally administers the land and the housing. Forty-six families have been housed in new homes at Bethlehem and the construction of 44 new houses is planned.
Overcoming the stereotype of the oppression of women in Pakistan, Reshma is the leader of this expanding community of families at Bethlehem. She chairs meetings with the building contractor, is spokesperson when visitors come to Bethlehem, and is a vocal participant at board meetings.
In January 2012 during a ceremony at Government House in Karachi hosted by the governor of Sindh, she spoke on behalf of 30 families who were the first to receive papers for their new homes. Recently she played an important part in taking steps to overcome the problem of 100% illiteracy at Bethlehem when five young men from Bethlehem were selected to begin two years of accelerated learning in April 2014 at the Catholic Youth Development Centre in Hyderabad.
Reshma’s first contact with St. Elizabeth Hospital and James Francis was in 2009. St. Elizabeth’s mobile medical outreach team visited the small group of families where she was living. The medical outreach teams continued to care for them and thousands of other families during the floods of 2010 and 2011. The people lost everything in the floods. 
After the second flood in 2011, Reshma’s group of homeless families was five times pushed off land when they tried to put up temporary shelters. One time a landlord had his men burn the people’s shacks and shelters to get rid of them. Hearing that St. Elizabeth’s had begun building houses to re-house flood victims, Reshma went to see James Francis and asked if anything could be done for her people.
The “anything” that Reshma asked about has become the “good thing” at Bethlehem. A “great thing” is the level of harmonious understanding, cooperation, and interaction that has developed between Reshma representing the Bethlehem families, James Francis from St. Elizabeth Hospital, and the board of the Shelter society. The photo says it all.
Columban Fr Robert McCulloch was a missionary in Pakistan for 34 years.
Read more from The Far East, May 2014