Peace out: Talib-i-Aman to encourage diversity and inclusion at PU

The project aims to help students come to terms with identity crisis and conflict.

LAHORE:

University education is about much more than just curricular activities. It provides a setting for various student bodies and groups to interact and engage in extra-and co-curricular activities. A recently established youth organisation has taken on the issue of on-campus violence and aims to help students resolve their problems peacefully.   

Youth Advocacy Network Chairperson Fasahatul Hassan, 24, told The Express Tribune that the Talib-i-Aman initiative, translated as Student of Peace, was trying to create a platform for students to interact and view each other outside of cultural, political and ethnic paradigms.

Talib-i-Aman began in July. It has been started in three universities in the country including the Punjab University. The project, funded by the United Nations Alliance of Civilisations, was selected this year for the Youth Solidarity Fund out of six projects from Pakistan.



The PU Institute of Social and Cultural Studies will help Talib-i-Aman implement the project in the university. Hassan, who completed his master’s in gender studies from the PU last year, said he had himself witnessed clashes between student bodies. “Once you are on campus you understand the issues and the nature of the conflicts, which at times get very violent,” he said.

Hassan said the boarders were worse off as most clashes between students occurred in hostels.

“Security personnel are deployed at the Karachi University and Balochistan University on a permanent basis,” he said, “How can this be a healthy educational environment?”

The government needed to do better than deploying security officials, he said, “No one reaches out to help these students deal with identity issues.”

Last year in October, Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba at the PU had a violent conflict with Pashtun and Baloch student bodies. As many as 100 policemen had been deployed at the campus because of that.

PU Additional Registrar Aurangzeb Alamgir had said at that time that as many as 100 students had been expelled over five years for creating a law and order situation on the campus.

The Talib-i-Aman project, Hassan said, aimed to engage various student groups and work towards bringing them together.

“We want to make the PU’s environment more accepting of diversity,” ISCS Dean Muhammad Zakria Zakir said, “The project is a step in the right direction.”

He said that the project’s efficacy might be judged when its orientation seminars started in the coming weeks. Students from other universities would also be invited to participate, he said.

“Universities here work like high schools,” he said, “When students are not engaged at intellectual and social levels, they remain isolated from diverse identity groups.”

Dr Zakir said that there were very few activities that empowered the youth in the society.

The Talib-i-Aman project will have four phases: orientation sessions for faculty and students; training; policy making; and advocacy. The project has also been started at the Karachi University and the Peshawar University. It is expected to be introduced soon at the Balochistan University and the Quaid-i-Azam University. The project will end in December. A youth conference will then be held to share the project’s outcomes with the relevant government departments.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 5^th, 2013.