To highlight the importance of educating Pakistan’s youth and to celebrate United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) “Year of tolerance” a group of art enthusiasts and education supporters from the Pakistani community organised the “Jahan Hai Terey Liyah” event in Dubai at the Pakistan Association Dubai (PAD) on Friday from 5pm-8 pm.
The function organisers included the Embassy of Pakistan, Poetic Strokes, Pakistani Artist Fraternity of the UAE, PAD, Pakistan Youth Forum and Friends of NAMAL College UAE.
Sehr Amjad Ismail, Friends of Namal College UAE, Global Ambassador of the ZB Foundation, CARE Foundation Pakistan introduced the event and highlighted the grave state of education in Pakistan and what concerned Pakistani citizens living abroad could do to make a significant contribution to the national effort to change it.
“The future of any country depends on its investment in its citizens and this can only be done through education and promotion of the arts and culture of the nation,” she emphasised in her detailed address.
Masooma Rizvi is a Dubai based Pakistani artist and curator who has strived over the last two years to bring Pakistani artists living in the UAE together and unite them as a fraternity.
This will enable them to showcase their work to the right target art audience.
In the words of Masooma Rizvi, “It was a very successful launch, well attended and well received and will serve as a benchmark for future art initiatives. We would like the concerned art and cultural authorities and overseas Pakistani organisations to approach us for creative collaborations.”
To talk about the importance of education and tolerance, Hammad Safi, the “little professor” came all the way from Peshawar to give a short motivational talk. Hammad Safi represents the youth of the nation and is an inspiration to all Pakistanis who desire to bring a positive change to the country.
The “Little Professor” was very well received by the 200 plus audience consisting of adults and some children ages seven and up who asked him very interesting questions at the end of his 20 minute talk.
Safi spoke about young people being inspired to bring about change. He also stressed on the role his parents and teachers had in his personal journey to success but also emphasised that children should be allowed to make their own choices.
Poetic Strokes Founder Ayesha Imtiaz was also there. She founded Poetic Strokes in 2007 and since then it has established itself as a unique platform committed to fostering art in all its various forms.
Jahan Hai Terey Liyah was a very successful event and achieved its dual purpose of promoting Pakistani art and launching the Pakistani Artist Fraternity of the UAE as well as educating the Pakistani Diaspora about the importance of supporting education in Pakistan. The artists’ works were very positively received and sold very well
Poetic Strokes was one of the key supporters and facilitators of the event and Ayesha Imtiaz co-curated the art exhibition and also helped in organising and executing a very successful event. “It was a very well received event where the Pakistani community showed its support towards art, higher education and tolerance. We must have more of such meaningful events,” she said.
Jahan Hai Terey Liyah was a very successful event and achieved its dual purpose of promoting Pakistani art and launching the Pakistani Artist Fraternity of the UAE as well as educating the Pakistani Diaspora about the importance of supporting education in Pakistan. The artists’ works were very positively received and sold very well. There were about 200 guests in a packed hall.
Many prominent Pakistani personalities were there.
“The result of a survey showed that in some key subjects, children of the ages six-eight years who had not joined school and learnt at home scored better than those children studying in public schools. The state of higher education is also not much better. Of the 15,000 who took the Civil Service Examination two years ago, only just over 200 passed! In a world which is becoming more competitive every day and where knowledge – not capital, land or just low skilled labour -provides the cutting edge to those countries that perform better, clearly we have a long way to go. It is not surprising that Pakistan’s exports have remained stagnant over the past five years and even after over 35 percent devaluation in the past year and a half our export earnings refuse to budge. But it’s not doom and gloom. The new government has been elected on the plank of social justice of which the main pillar is increasing not just numbers but equally and many would say more important the quality of education. It is just not the government that can solve the problem but also the private sector and non-government organisations like the Citizens Foundation, CARE Foundation Pakistan, Akhuwat and many more who are making a major effort to provide quality education to those from low income households with generous support and donations from people like you and me. There has also been significant improvements in our efforts to provide good quality cutting edge knowledge at the higher education level. Too name a few – LUMS, Lahore School of Economics, IBA Karachi and NAMAL are making a mark. In case of NAMAL, it’s important to emphasise that it’s the first university set up in rural Pakistan and that too in a less developed area. It attracts students from all over Pakistan and its results have been equally impressive,” Sehr Amjad Ismail said, during her speech at the event.