Festival to bring youth and experts together. DESIGN: SUNARA NIZAMI/FILE
The Khudi Festival of Ideas opened at Ali Auditorium on Friday.
“The aim is to improve the world’s image of Pakistan and to counter stereotypical narratives about the country and its youth,” Rab Nawaz, head of the organising team, said.
As many as 300 young people from all over the country will participate in the three-day event.
This is the second such conference held by Khudi, an organisation working to counter extremism among the Pakistani youth. Its first national-level conference was organised in 2012.
The conference organisers said the festival would provide young people a platform to foster better understanding of one another. “We need to educate the youth about the country and its people and promote tolerance for one another,” says Nawaz.
The organisation has been hosting international youth conferences and festivals in Islamabad since 2010.
“Our team felt that there was a need to first address problems within the country, which is why a national level festival was organised,” he said.
The festival will bring together young minds to engage with reputed individuals from various industries.
The festival opened with a talk by former information minister Javed Jabbar. It was followed by ice-breaking sessions and activities for the delegates. The first session also included a mushaira and cultural dances.
The delegates will attend panel discussions on topics like democratic transition, conflict resolution, education and censorship. Several prominent journalists, writers and activists will take part in the formal sessions that will commence from Saturday (today). They include Ayaz Amir, Wajahat Masood, Tahir Mehdi, Fahd Husain, Murtaza Solangi, Saroop Ijaz , Yasser Latif Hamdani, Tanveer Jahan, Taimur Rehman and Dr AH Nayyar.
Nearly 250 delegates participated in the festival last year. The organisation received more than 1,000 applications for the festival. The delegates were selected based on their involvement in political and social activism.
The festival was designed for the 18-35 year olds. The organisers said that more than 80 per cent of the delegates were 20 to 25 years of age. As many as 300 delegates from Charsadda, Peshawar, Karachi, Sanghar, Islamabad, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Sialkot, Pakpattan, Multan and Lahore will participate in the events this weekend.
The sessions will be held on Saturday (today) at Ali Auditorium, Ali Institute of Education, from 9:30am to 5:00pm. It will be followed by musical and theatrical performances. The festival will conclude on Sunday afternoon.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 26th, 2013.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ