Powerball winnings to help earthquake victims

The Chicago Tribune newspaper reported on 12 march 2006 that when Ihsan Khan won $18 million on the US Powerball lottery in 2001, he could never had imagined that he would be able to use it to help fellow countrymen in Pakistan some five years later. Although Mr Khan was born in Pakistan, he had US and Pakistani nationality having been to university in Northern Illinois, and worked in Washington and Chicago. Two days before the earthquake struck on 8 October 2005, Khan was elected as mayor of his local town in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. Now, some six months on, the Pakistan government is closing the very basic refugee camps and making people return to their devastated homelands. Mr Khan is trying to help locals rebuild their homes, whilst also using his own money to buy medical supplies. Looking ahead he is paying for children to attend college, and he hopes to build a school named after his mother. The whole region needs more than Mr Khan’s lottery winnings, but he is able and willing to give something back to the country of his birth.

- 12/2/06