Al-Mashal Welfare Foundation

Check out this video of a free volunteer school that’s doing the most unbelievable work in a working class abadi in Saddar, Cantonment. Watch this to see the amazing philanthropic work of the people responsible for this great school.

You can find out more by visiting the Foundation’s website at http://almashalfoundation.org/

This might be a scary movie for rest of the world. But Pakistan and Pakistani may learn from it. Cuba after collapse of soviet union faced two major issues.

1. Energy Crisis (Peak Oil Prices – Power Shortages of up to 14 – 16 hours a day)
2. Shortage of Fertilizer (Leading to food shortages)

This is a story of how Cubans, who were an educated nation of doctor and engineers, stood up against all odds and survived gracefully. people believed that sharing what little they DID have (food, land, resources) with each other was more important and for the greater good than hoarding it for themselves. Also the government was very encouraging, and allowed all unused urban land to be turned into incredibly productive gardens.

Click on the image to see the video

With shortage of fertilizers and power cuts, We are also as vulnerable to a sudden collapse of our current agricultural systems. Watch this one for some inspiration on how to get our Pakistan out of the current Mess!

Also, in last couple of weeks, I have fallen in love with  TED.com again. There are some really inspirational videos over there. have a nice day!

A man selling pollution masks on The Mall

Once found only in operation theatres of well-sanitized hospitals and medical facilities, masked men can now easily be seen roaming the main roads of Lahore selling an easy but effective solution to the city’s alarming pollution problems.

Our guardians against pollution and related diseases; saving many lives indirectly, they are our heroes too! :)

Remembering the Heroes of Ghakkar Plaza tragedy

This banner was spotted at Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport which was put up by the Union of Civil Aviation Employees. Fellow employees at the Civil Aviation Authority paid honor to the memory of late firefighters Abid Ali and Rizwan-ul-Haq; both of them, along with many other firemen, lost their lives while saving civilians from Rawapindi’s burning Ghakkarr Plaza.

They are truly our real heroes!

Some time back, around 2 or three years, I remember reading few books on suggestion from a very close friend of mine. we were discussing diversity at that time. That dear friend not only gave me a reading list but was kind enough to share two books with me. One was Taboo by Dr. Fouzia Saeed and the other was Between Chaddor and the Market by Jasmin Mirza. Book Review here

My first reaction was shock. yes, shock is the word that almost defines what i felt for days after reading those books. During my 8 years in corporate sector, I had an opportunity to live and work with people from different parts of the world. I attended training and seminars on issue of workplace diversity and gender issues. Even then this was too big a cultural shock for me to absorb.

Can people living in the same city  be so different and isolated in their values? Can all of this still be happening in modern times? Questions, questions and more questions I was left with. The adventure boy inside me wanted me to check out the Mohalla first hand. And I did. not once but three times but in none of those trips, I was able to verify the detailed descriptions of the sub-culture as defined in the books.

First trip was during day time and second one was in Moharram, so the bazaar was not open and all i saw was just the shops and ordinary people. I was impressed with the architecture of inner city though.  In the last trip, I got a glimpse of reality. It was at perfect time. 1 A.M. and I saw the same visuals as described in the books and as you will see in the documentary below. Since, I went alone, I did not dare to enter any of the so called “Office”.  Only few friends know what happened that night.

This documentary came as a surprise. It verified the contents of the books above and contains real truth about the people who frequent these tawaifs. the interview of the police office in charge is really interesting. This documentary was originally made for TV One but they did not dare to air it. so some one published it on internet. It is a real eye opener. It shows a face of our society, no one even wants mention. Download and save this as PTA might ban these URLs too. as it contains some politically radioactive content. Here is the excerpt from the blog where I originally found the links to these Youtube.com videos.

These book can be bought from here or here, both books were published by Oxford University Press and thus they should be available at FerozSons on The MALL.

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Many youngsters from the Pakistan Youth Alliance have started a campaign under the banner of “Pak Palestine Solidarity Movement”. They are holding a Charity drive in Lahore, The PYA office is in Defence, near Masjid Chowk, and they will be putting up booths at the following places:

• Friday 9th January 2009: 3:00 PM after Jumma Prayers @ Main Market Opposit Jalal Sons.
• Saturday 10th January 2009: 12:00 Noon – 5:00 PM Regal Chowk, The Mall, Near Masjid-e-Shohada.
• Saturday 11th January 2009: 06:00 PM – 11:00 PM Main Market, Opposite Jalal Sons.

Besides donations, they are desperately looking for volunteers to man their booths, so if you feel you can spare a couple of hours, do get in touch with them. The collections will go out to help the Palestinian affectees through Muslim Hands. If you are a blogger, you are especially invited to join in and cover these drives on your blog.

You can contact the following for further Information

Maryam Kanwar: 0346-5084265 & 0331-5105916
Ahsan Tariq: 0346-4117787

You can also make direct donations to
Muslim Hands: http://www.muslimhands.org/en/gb/
IFRC: http://www.ifrc.org/

If you are related to the medical profession, the letter pasted below is another opportunity to reach out and volunteer to help the Palestinian victims.

Assalamualaikum.
I’m working with some people from the the ICRC and the Qatar Red Crescent and they’re setting up a field hospital in both Cairo and Gaza. They’re currently recruiting staff for those hospitals. The work in Gaza itself will obviously depend to a large extent on the amount of access possible through Rafah over the next few days and weeks.
There are 2 week to 8 week (or even longer) stints available there now and they’re recruiting able volunteer doctors from anywhere to go. They need anaesthetists, neurosurgeons/cardiac/orthopaedic surgeons, ER docs, ICU docs and nurses, obs/gynae docs, ID docs and public health doctors.

Flights/transport/food/water/cups of tea and shelter will be arranged and provided for by the ICRC and the Qatar Red Crescent.

Even if your specialty is in some other relevant area or your experience is somewhat limited please send in your applications all the same if you’re keen.

For all those interested please send a copy of your CV, with details of your nationality(include a copy of your passport) and the length of your availability to salam.obaidi@gmail.com

Selected volunteers will be contacted in due course.

Jazak Allah

Dr. Osman Dar
SpR Public Health,
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

One sleepy Sunday afternoon in late November (23rd to be more precise) gathered all post dot com breed of citizen journalists (lately to be labelled as Bloggers) to discuss what is so special about what they do.

Audience at the Lahore Bloggers Meet-up

Google Pakistan and CIO Magazine hosted a meet-up of Lahori Bloggers and wanna-bees to discuss everything related to the phenomenon of ‘Blogging’ in Pakistan. LUMS proved to be an excellent venue (Internet connection apart) for the event providing all of us with the space and opportunity to interact, network and personally meet people that we usually know only through their blogs. Suprisingly, more than a hundred people turned up without any formal invitation still the response and the attendence was impressive.

Badar Khushnood, Country Consultant, Google Pakistan

The three-hour session started at 3:00 pm with Badar Khushnood, Country Consultant for Google in Pakistan as well as the main host of the afternoon, talked about Blog basics and provided a beginner’s guide to effective and profitable ways to share your mind through Blogosphere.

Saad Hamid (Sizlopedia) sharing his success story

It was followed by Saad Hamid (Sizlopedia) and Maryam Nasim (Pinkwool) taking the stage sharing their personal success stories in this field. Maryam, although does not calls herself a blogger, provided an excellent insight into the wonders networking through Internet can bring in terms of work-from-home kind of profitable business models. A dedicated housewife, she designs electronic greeting cards and free printable graphics to sell through her website while earning very lucrative returns in the process. The person that we really missed was Haris Nadeem (Sizzledcore), a very young and dedicated tech. blogger who actually couldn’t attend because of his exams.

The Professionals

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THOUGH Rudyard Kipling lived only five of his 70 years in Lahore, they were the most crucial years of his development as a writer. This rich confection of a city, whose great Mogul buildings and street life evoke the deep hues and sensuality of a miniature painting, was where the teen-aged Kipling cut his teeth as a newspaperman. Lahore provided the setting for some of Kipling’s greatest stories, as well as the raw material for his somewhat misunderstood view of East and West.

Though now obscured as a tourist destination due to its location 15 miles inside Pakistan, Lahore was the heart of Kipling’s India. Between 1882 and 1887, he worked there as the assistant editor of The Civil and Military Gazette, combing the back alleys of the old, walled city for stories and material for his later fiction. Like the Irish street urchin, Kim, the hero of his greatest novel, Kipling used Lahore as a base to explore the rest of the subcontinent.

Armed with the Penguin edition of ”Kim,” I set out for the Lahore Museum, where Kipling’s father, John Lockwood Kipling, had been the curator and where the first scene in ”Kim” takes place. The novel opens with Kim sitting ”astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher – the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum.” It was while astride the gun that Kim meets a Tibetan lama, whom the boy then escorts into the Wonder House.

The Zam-Zammah (Urdu for lion’s roar) is known in Lahore as Kim’s gun, and, except for the brick platform that has been replaced by marble, the copper and brass cannon looks exactly as Kipling described it; a massive icon of imperialism over 14 feet long, mounted on wooden wheels that are well over six feet in diameter. And the Wonder House opposite is just that; in my opinion one of the world’s great underrated museums.
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As an inevitable result of the ongoing military operation in the northern parts of our country, hundreds of men, women and children have died an unfair death while thousands had to leave their homes to escape being sandwiched in the militants vs military war.

Recent media reports and personal accounts of individual visitors tell us that many of the families who fled the scene of fighting are now living in refugee camps at Mardan and Nowshera.

This is the time to stand together, again, in helping the victims of the situation. A friend and our fellow LMB author, Mohammad Khan (aka Momekh) has taken initiative to start a relief effort from Lahore focused on collection of tents, medicines, food, ration, bottled water, utensils (plates) and other goods that may be of any use to our brethern in need. Ramadan is approaching and these people need help fast.

In his own words, “Preferred is medicine for diarrhea, hepatitis. Or utensils like plates etc. If not, cash can also be sent. A comprehensive list of required stuff inshALLAH will be ready soon.”

If you are interested in contributing relief goods, volunteering or helping by any means please contact:

Mohammad Khan

62-Bridge Colony, Lahore Cantonment

Mobile: 0300-4003055

Please spread the word to those you think will be interested in helping too.

We need to revive the October 2005 spirit back into action…!