No Tall Talks, Just Small Actions!

This video showcases the story of a woman, who did not lose hope. A woman who gave it a try. A woman who attempted on destiny and succeeded. Washington Area Women's Foundation is a community organization working for the women of Washington DC metropolitan area. The Foundation works through philanthropy, but their uniqueness lie in their approach. Instead of giving them one-off financial help, which is very popular in societies like Pakistan, these bunch of philanthropists got together and tried to think of the ways their little money could provide them lifelong relief.

The program they developed focussed on leadership training in financial education, wealth creation, jobs and business ownership, child care, early education, health care and safety etc. Another amazingly effective feature was their identification of two general groups of women in Washington area. At one side, there were women who were most highly educated, employed and well paid in the nation. While on the other hand, there are women struggling in their role as family breadwinners, inadequately paid, living in or nearby poverty, having limited access to health care facilities for herself and the family. The Foundation connected these two groups of women. The one's from privileged backgrounds became potential trainers. This video is a success story of one of these women who got training to get a job, she eventually got a decent job and now her living standard has been changed considerably.

This is what I call power of individual's actions! Why can't we make a decision just now, that instead of making tall talk in drawing room discussions and on Facebook pages, why not do something on our own little individual level? A small step that could grow into a bigger one, could be our decision to educate people around us. Let's narrow it down a little more. All of us, well most of us, have domestic help available to do household chores. Mostly, this labour force comprises women, and in many cases children as well. Can we just take a decision NOW to educate at least one of our domestic helpers?

Education in this case would not mean literacy. It would mean enabling them to think, make informed opinion,learn life skills, develop a civic sense, make hygiene and cleanliness an inalienable part of their consciousness, assisting them developing a vocabulary related to their work, making them conscious of their rights and duties of being a law abiding citizen, teaching them importance of water and energy conservation. Believe me it is not very difficult. Its much easier than making high (mostly false) claims and doing conspiracy induced superficial political analyses in our living rooms.

One small step from us, can change a life. Is it too much to ask?

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Women of Pakistan Envy Indian Monkey

The basic principle of justice has to be, justice for all. We in Pakistan still facing myriad of issues relating to a flawless dispensation of justice to masses with out any discrimination, despite the fact that we fought for a free judiciary for over one year. It makes one feel absolutely dejected to see masses still crying for justice after all that uproar and excitement. When one sees long lines of pension seekers trying to get what is their right, as something given as bounty, women beaten up, thrown acid on, raped, maimed and thrown naked to the streets, when one sees minority communities living under severest of distress, when one sees lower judicial set up as vultures ready to eat these poor people, one is inclined to disbelief all the rhetoric of free judiciary.

At the end of the day, dispensation of justice begins from acknowledging an act as crime. If domestic violence is not even considered a punishable crime, how can one expect to get redress from the system? When acid throwing is not listed in the penal code as a form of offence, how one can even hope for it to be punishable? And when even some of these crimes against humanity are listed as crimes, our rotten system just refuses to acknowledge that it ever happened. In our part of the world, the basic step for getting justice is registering it as crime in a police station. The registration document is called, First Information report, commonly known as FIR. Would you believe that despite all what we have done to get free judiciary with an inspiration of making it possible for masses to access justice with equality, it is still not possible for an average middle class urban family to get a complaint registered with the police.

In one instance, the FIR could not be registered for the rape of a young girl in Bahawalpur till the time she gave birth to a baby girl. Her case still lingers in one of the courts, after ninth birthday of her child. I wonder what the child would be called by our elitist intelligentsia - a love child?

Amidst all this, it was pleasant to hear that Jhumuri got her FIR registered in first attempt and without going to the police station. She just sent her written complaint, and the custodians of law came into motion. It happened in a local police station at Astarang in Orissa’s Puri district of India. Jhumuri fears for the life of her son, by a jealous former husband of hers. She then, with the help of neighborhood responsible citizens, lodged a written complaint with the police station. "We have registered a case under Section 363 (kidnapping), Section 366(abducting for slavery) and Section 307 (attempt to murder) of Indian Penal Code (IPC). We are trying to give protection to the baby. . ." inspector-in-charge of Astarang police station, Mr Satindra Kumar Das, is quoted as saying according to The Telegraph, India.

The only thing that makes this news item unique is the fact the complainant was a female monkey! Yes, Jhumuri is a female monkey who registered a complaint against her former husband, through local residents. Jhumuri charged her "former husband", a male monkey called Raja, with attempting to kill her three-month-old baby Kuna. She put the imprint of her tail end on the one-page complaint, written in Oriya by the local people, The Telegraph says. Raja was found to have become jealous of the baby monkey and tried to kill it several times. But her mother was able to abort all such attempts, with the help of the local people. When the locals felt that the simian kid faced a real threat to its life from the band leader, they decided to seek help from the police to drive out the rogue monkey. According to Mr Das, about a dozen monkeys led by Raja have been camping in the Astarang market area for the last few days. They have been provided with food by local businessmen and animal lovers.

Jhumuri is happy that she got justice in first attempt. Women of Pakistan envy this Indian monkey and long for justice, with bills on domestic violence and sexual harassment still pending before the Parliament.

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Challenging Opportunities in the Development Sector

CERD an organization working for sustainable and poverty free community since 2000 benefiting the community’s poorest and disadvantaged people in the most underdeveloped areas of the country.  Extending a support to earn and achieve the right to food, shelter, work, education, health care and gain self sufficiency.

WALK IN INTERVIEW 

On 16-11-2009 at 11:00Am 

 Project Supervisor. (08 positions)

1. Community Nutrition Supervisor. (08 positions)
2. Nutrition Assistant. (37 positions)
3. Community Nutrition Promoters. (74 Positions)

How to apply:

Please submit a cover letter clearly indicting the position interested in the subject line and up-dated CV (including 2 references) via email hr@cerdpakistan.org  within two days of this advertisement or visit personally to our Regional Office Madina Colony Balambat near Madina Masjid, Iqra Academy, Lower Dir. if any problem in finding the address feel free to call on 0321-8983445. 

CERD provides congenial working environment with opportunities of growth, learning, and exposure to a wide range of development actors. CERD is an equal opportunity employer and encourages qualified females to apply. 

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What Can People Do For Peace?

Today, our country is confronting a host of issues ranging from economic crunch to more basic challenge of peace and security. Our people are living in a war zone, especially in northern part of our country. Every other day, we hear of a terrorist activity and resultant killings of dozens of innocent citizens. People are sending their kids to educational institutions under strong threat of their security. Our children are growing and youth is living under constant threat to their lives.

In all this mayhem, what makes one thoroughly disappointed is our people’s propensity of being manipulated by so many actors of power game and a highly “corporatized” media, often against the larger good of our beloved country, but for the benefit of few stakeholders of the system.

It is high time to realize our own responsibility instead of putting blames on irresponsible media, “incapable” politicians and ready-to-grab-power institutions of tis fateful country. Let’s try to see where we can make our contribution towards better future of our next generations and of our country.

Let me cite here, how the initiatives from people and the civil society have been preventing war between Peru and Ecuador. In 1995, for the third time since 1941, Peru and Ecuador went to war. There were calls for a cease-fire, a separation of forces, and negotiations to find a definitive settlement to the longest-running border dispute in the Western Hemisphere. The diplomatic initiatives concluded, eventually, with the signing of a peace accord on 26 October 1998, in Brasilia. Running parallel to the diplomatic moves, was a process referred to as “citizen diplomacy”—an initiative in which civil-society groups discussed issues underlying the conflict, and ways of resolving it without official and diplomatic constraints.

Similarly, older people – the senior citizens – came out to play their role in resolving the political turmoil in Kyrgyzstan in 2005. A report by HelpAge International states that due to the turmoil, pensions of older people were suspended. They came out and negotiated peace between the conflicting factions of political parties.

But this is not about launching a “mass movement”, it is just to realize our own responsibility and then thinking together what the people can do constructively to get the country out of this labyrinth of problems.

With this view, I’ve launched a series of on-line seminar, for which I’m very grateful to Ms. Zoia Tariq, for helping me mature this idea. I invite all of you to kindly participate in this seminar under this and post your comments / suggestions. We’ll compile all your recommendations and suggestions into a citizen’s resolution and then put it to action.

You can also place your comments on my Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Marvi-Sirmed/54285023894?ref=ts Earnestly waiting for your contribution!

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How Difficult it is to be a Woman!

“How can a working woman be a good mother?” An assertive comment disguised as a question comes across women so many times during the day that ultimately it becomes a huge guilt for them, to work (read work for getting paid). But did someone ever realize that it’s not only paid work that generates guilt, a woman’s mere living on her choice becomes guilt at the end of a day. One of my Facebook friends was narrating how she was harassed by aggressive onlookers when one evening she just wanted to drive on roads and listen to music in car. She pulled down the car windows, and here came the wrath! I can imagine how it would have been.

Just thought to get the idea from my Facebook contact list, as my list is a perfect microcosm of the society we’re living in. There are hawks, there are moderates, there are seculars and there are very few agnostics / atheists and anti-religious people as well. There are people from political / social / economic elite, there are people from urban middle class, there are people from semi urban towns, from lower middle class, from educated (academically speaking) and semi-literate class – all of them. I thoroughly enjoy comments coming from all of them as it gives me great insight to anthropology of issues; we normally deal with in complete isolation. Although, I do understand the limitations of FB user generally and completely understand that a sample that uses FB, can’t be taken as a representative of our society. Without an academic generalization, we can somehow get an idea where the collective opinion is tilting to.

In order to get that sense, I posted a scenario, which might not occur in daily life of most of the respondents, but the possibility of which could not be set aside considering the “subject” of our story, being a human being. My question was:

A young wife, mother of three, wants to go cinema with one of her friends. The friend is a male. Should her husband ALLOW her to go with a male at the dead of the night? Three of our characters live in Lahore. What should the husband do? Please be concise and clear. We’ll analyse the result, which is going to be interesting for you to read!

The first response was from a male with a western name, in a strong NO. There were total 139 responses, out of which only five said a straight yes, only two could get the trick of my putting the word “ALLOW” in caps and put a question mark as to why she should be allowed! Rest of the people either said no, or suggested the husband of our story to allow her if the friend is her brother, cousin etc. But there came some very interesting points during all this discussion, which amply showed how women are taken among the class that uses Facebook, means the computers and the internet. This class has to be effluent enough to buy a computer, rent a computer in a net cafe, access a computer at workplace, or borrow a computer for leisure purpose. It must be the class with minimum level of education, or at least literate. It must be the class that could access internet, means in bigger cities or smaller towns of Pakistan, or may be abroad. Since majority of the respondents (99.9%) had Muslim names and displayed linguistic nuances and social jargon of Pakistan (or at the maximum north India), it is assumed that they were mostly Pakistanis.

It must be noted that I changed my question twice in order to get more natural responses from them. The second set of responses came for the following question:

I think my question was unfair. Let’s change it. A young handsome man, father of three, wants to go cinema with one of his female colleagues/friends. Should his wife allow him to go with a female in the dead of the night?

I changed it once again to the following question:

Alright alright . . . The wife wants to go alone. No male or female friend. Just alone. Cinema for herself. Then?

And finally, this one:

So guys, do we settle that wife shouldn’t go alone, her security, our religion – - – so many issues. But husband can. Right?

I record my observation on their responses here:

1. Most of the respondents were males. Only two women became part of the discussion. One of them came up with a very strange aspect of the whole issue. It was shocking to see how gender relations are seen even among women.
2. Any contact between man and woman is linked to sex and sexual aspect of relationships
3. Men seem to be extremely suspicious of fellow male folk, when it comes to their contact with women. It seems all men behave in the same manner with women, overtly or covertly, which is why they would not allow “their” women to have any contact with a male.
4. There seems to be just no concept of a relationship between men and women, which has no sexual connotation. That makes me extremely uncomfortable with all the men on my list, who are unable to see their contact with women in a platonic manner.
5. There’s just no concept what so ever, of a woman leading her life on her own will. Men take a woman as their “owned” being, with all the rights on her life. A woman is expected to do anything and everything with their permission. Only two responses recognized the fact that a woman should need no “permission” from anyone before exercising the right to recreation, and that no o ne should have any right to allow or disallow her.
6. It was strange to note, that men had no concern about themselves going out, but when it came to women, they had their ‘defence mechanism’ in full force. For some it was equivalent to catalysing a deterioration of moral code, for others it was repugnant to the religious injunctions. Some thought it would be dangerous for a woman to go out considering the “mentality” of men folk, others said it would be insecure for women to roam about in today’s circumstances of terrorism. It was rather strange to note that none of these insecurities could be cited to hinder men’s right to mobility. Although bombs do not recognize sexes before killing, but danger of terrorism was put in the way of women’s freedom.
7. A woman went to the extent of saying that such a husband (the one who ALLOWS his wife to go out with a male friend) would actually be promoting prostitution. This was one of the most honest comments I must say. When a woman is out, she is seen no lesser than a SLUT by all and sundry. And if her husband is not seen encaging or “disallowing” her to move freely, he would be seen as a PIMP who draws certain benefits in lieu of “sending” his wife with someone.

Does that piss you off? I mean, the only reason for a woman’s existence is SEX. And this is conditioned so strongly among men and women alike, that it is just not possible for them to accept that women are human beings just like men. They can long for happiness, just like men do. Their happiness might lie outside the four walls of home, and outside the ambit of social roles attached to them, just like in the case of men. A woman might want to go out, without having to think about her being an object of sex. A woman might want to do little things to have fun, outside the home. A woman might like to have friends around her – male or female. A woman might like to experience the freedom of not asking her husband before going anywhere, at any point in time, just like men do.

On the contrary, she is expected to attach all her happiness around her family. Her morality, her goodness, her value of being – everything is linked to how she performs her social role. She has to be a good mother, a good wife, sister and daughter. Every role, please note, is to cater men. A woman is respectable only if she is a sister, mother or wife. There is no other way for her to claim respect in society.

A man would never think about religion before doing anything around his daily activity. But when it comes to women, religion rapidly comes into play. If it is mingling of the other sex with them, outside homes and family, things would be ok. But women of their own families should be taken in certain way, they should behave in certain way and talked about in certain way. This hypocrisy almost always goes unnoticed by our men folk, to sensitive about religious injunctions otherwise!

It is also interesting to see that religion which is brought in whenever it comes to the rights of women, it is never brought in play whenever cultural norms, which negate religious injunctions (Swara, karo kari, Badl-e-sulh, marriage with Quran, not giving women their right to inheritance etc.) are used to coerce women.

In brief, it was very clear to see all the responses that it is just not right for women to exercise their right to befriend with anyone, to have fun with their friends without being taken as object of sex, lead their lives with freedom of will and choice. And last but not least, to have fun.

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Lahore Lahore Aye, Even if it is in Virginia!

Yesterday my very dear FB friend Qaisar Janjua posted a picture on my page that gave an impression that a car in America might have a registration number of Lahore. That reminded me of an incident that happened in late 1990s when I was working with South Asia Partnership Pakistan. We were based in Lahore and used to communicate with our desk in Canada on regular basis. Email was there, but not that commonly used for official approvals etc. So snail mail was a routine. It happened so often that I did not get mail from Canadian colleagues which they would insist they had sent. The anomaly was resolved soon when we discovered that our mail was going to Lahore, Virginia instead of Lahore, Pakistan!

I was thrilled to know that. Tried to research a bit on it but could not find anything except that it was a small village comprising few households in Orange County. The village, it was told, was established by an American couple in 1860s who chose its name through random reading of a book on India, which was quite in news those days because of War of Independence fought by the natives against the English.

The story got Pakistani media's attention in mid seventies when a Pakkistani American journalist, Mr. Akmal Aleemi wrote a column in a then popular Urdu Daily Imroz. The column informed about the existence of Lahore in Viriginia, which Mr. Aleemi discovered accidentally, when he lost his way in Orange County. The story although, got lost in people's memories and the life went on. Khalid Hasan, another very senior Pakistani journalist (who died early this year), broke the story once again in early 2007, with a pleasant news of a Lahori soul who was trying to buy the village of Lahore in Virginia.

Noor Naghmi, son of very well-known broadcaster Abul Hasan Naghmi brought the American Lahore to the news once again in 2007. The senior Naghmi would still be alive in the memories of 1970s' kids who would devoutly  listen to Mohni Hamid's (Apa Shamim) program on Radio Pakistan those days. Naghmi sahib played a much loved "Bhaijan" in that program and was famous for his typical tone and polished accent. The junior Naghmi is a dealer in mortgage and rental of properties in Washington's Fairfax County. After a years long negotiations with Nancy Wallace, a farmer and tough negotiator who owned the 235 acres of American Lahore  including the center of the town, Naghmi was able to strike a deal for USD 3 million. It was not, however, an easy venture with an owner who believed she had no plans to sell, although "everything I have is for sale, for the right price," she said. 

Naghmi now, has a dream. The centre of the 1,500-resident farming town about 75 miles south of Washington is a strip of whitewashed buildings on a quiet stretch of road. An old water pump sits idle. A faded Esso sign creaks in the breeze. “The venture is an expensive gamble for Naghmi,” a Washington based newspaper says, but quotes Naghmi as saying, “I have this feeling I was born to do this. People might think I’m crazy for saying so, but that is what I believe.” He says he thinks that his successful ventures will help make his Lahore dream possible. 

Naghmi told the Washington Post’s Indian-American reporter Sandhya Somashekhar in 2007 that his $3 M deal will turn Lahore, Virginia into a regional tourist attraction for South Asians and others. His plans include a banquet hall fashioned after his hometown’s famous Shalimar Gardens. He envisions a library and a museum dedicated to the histories of both Lahores. He wants to open a bed-and-breakfast place to serve chickpea curry alongside eggs and toast. He wants to organize Basant with all its fan fare and pomp, in American Lahore.


The Washington Post, however, sees it with suspicion that Naghmi would be able to materialize it with out hurdles. Its not only money that could alone make dream a reality. Racism is a big hurdle in Naghmi's way. It would be difficult for American whites to see colored people  having all that fun in the heart of Orange County. 


But Naghmi is not deterred. He is confident that his vision will gain approval from the County and the project's neighbors. According to reports, he has begun negotiating with a film studio in Hyderabad, India, to create the facades for his buildings. He recently put up a sign -- written in English, Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi -- advertising the coming of the Lahore Museum!

For the benefit of the readers, I'm posting here an interview with Naghmi and following link to Lahore on Google Map: 

Google Map for Lahore, VA  

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