TCF ambassadors club organises talk on volunteerism

Student volunteers dedicate time to teach children from underprivileged areas

KARACHI: The Citizens Foundation (TCF) ambassadors club at the Institute of Business Management (IoBM), a volunteer-led club, organised a talk on 'Volunteerism: Fostering Empathy for Social Harmony' on Friday.
Dr Ishrat Husain, former State Bank of Pakistan governor and Arif Hasan, a renowned architect and urban planner were guest speakers at the event. The talk was moderated by Riaz Kamlani, TCF vice-president of outcomes.



Carrying the legacy of the founder and late president of IoBM Shahjehan Karim forward, the students of the institute are addressing social challenges and bridging class divisions.
The club is run and managed by undergraduate student volunteers who devote their time to teach children from underprivileged areas, under the TCF Alumni Development Programmme, to bridge the academic gap and help less privileged students get enrolled in reputed academic institutes or universities on scholarships after completing their Intermediate.



Kamlani said that individuals who compromise their social lives for people by serving beyond service hours, people donating money or extending intellectual support, institutes offering scholarships to less privileged students and youth dedicating their time for a cause all fall under the broader philosophy of volunteerism.
Dr Husain advised the student volunteers to join the civil services to change society, which has become materialistic as it does not encourage youth to join public service. Considering the dearth of strong institutions, there is a need for people to join such platforms to trigger systematic change for institutional strength, he added.



"Society as a whole is confronting a directionless change, which makes it difficult to assume where this might take us. However, the youth of today is far more empowered than the youth of around two decades back," said Hasan. He encouraged the volunteers to continue their selfless contribution, along with their studies, to make a significant change with a far reaching impact.
Hasan said that the fate of less privileged localities could be altered when the youth of these areas would be empowered through top-quality higher learning that would make them role models within their areas.



"In order to remove class barriers, we initiated the National Talent Hunt Programme (NTHP) at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), where students from deprived areas of Pakistan such as Hawaran, Panjgor, Gilgit Baltistan, Chitral, Tharparkar, Dadu and Layya come and compete," said Dr Husain. At the beginning they could be counted in single numbers but now they have crossed hundreds and are actively contributing to the uplift of the country, he added.
He lauded the potential of TCF alumni studying at IBA and praised their academic performance which was due to their immense hard work, devotion, resilience and desire to change their fate.
IoBM is one of the university chapters of TCF Alumni Development Programmme, which is a volunteer-run initiative to provide academic support to less-privileged children to help them enter reputed institutes across Pakistan.



Saira Haroon, a TCF alumna and sophomore at IoBM, who lives in Darya Paar, Lyari thanked Dr Ishrat Husain for his support and asked how the privileged and less privileged youth could bring about social cohesion and harmony in Pakistani society.
Dr Husain, the founding patron of the programme, highlighted the potential it holds. The programme, having started four years ago, has grown significantly over the years. In the first year of the programme, 13 TCF alumni managed to secure admissions in renowned institutes of Pakistan. The number of admissions kept increasing every consecutive year thereafter, with 27 TCF alumni in the second year, 54 in the third year and 75 TCF alumni in 2017 getting enrolled in reputed institutes of Pakistan on 100% scholarships.