LAHORE: Pakistan Learning Festival provided an opportunity to showcase the ‘incredible libraries’, which is another wonderful CLF-ITA initiative - after its Kitab Gari in the shape of rickshaws - the Digi Kutub Khanay, a library in a tin-trunk full of books and a pre-programmed tablet for children living in remote areas of Pakistan: coastal, mountain and desert regions.
In fact a bus full of children from Mubarak Goth (a fishing village on the outskirts of Karachi) came to attend the PLF at the OUP bookshop at Park Towers, Karachi, to share their excitement and pleasure of being the recipients of the first Digi Kutub Khana, making it an oasis of learning for them in the wilderness where they live, devoid of storybooks. The Alif Laila Book Bus Society - ALBBS (with a library in a bus) has had its presence since 1978, and now the sisters Rahima and Zubaida Jalal partnered with ALBBS to run Camel Libraries in Mand, Balochistan. “Learning Boldly”, remarked senior journalist Zubeida Mustafa in her message for these and other such ingenuities.
According to CLF Advisor Rumana Husain three-day Children’s Literature Festival (CLF) has now morphed into the Pakistan Learning Festival (PLF), and this is also a landmark year for it for more than this new avatar. It has been a decade since the first CLF took place in 2011, having had a remarkable nationwide footprint, as over 60 CLFs have already been held through the length and breadth of the country, and one digital festival last year, reaching over 1.5 million children and teachers.
Rumana was of the view that Covid-19 has changed the way that festivals are having to operate, but a virtual festival has the potential to fill the growing need in the children’s community. However, despite all the daunting challenges, the riveting PLF held for three days on February 8, 9 and 10, was designed as a trailblazing hybrid. A multi-site, multi-lingual, and a truly multi-cultural festival, with art, music, dance, poetry, stories, theatre, science workshops, discussions and technology all coming together, giving agency to children suffering learning losses for a year now.
The PLF was held in collaboration with the British Council, Children Library Complex (CLC), Oxford University Press (OUP), Room to Read, National History Museum (NHM) and Citizens Archive of Pakistan (CAP).
When Baela Raza Jamil, CEO Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi and Founder CLF declared in the opening session of the PLF that ‘Learning Never Stops’, she was perhaps referring not only to the fact that despite the challenges of the pandemic ways and means have been found to ensure that our children continue to learn, wherever the resources such as the PLF are available, but also to encourage people to keep their curious spark alive, to turn mirrors into windows.
The soulful and trained voices of two young girls, Mahnoor Altaf and Hadiya Hashmi reached the hearts of all the listeners, as also the Kathak classical dance performance by students of Har Sukh School and Haal-e-Raqs. The incredible siblings Rahat and Intikhab Burdi from Larkana, who have memorized the entire ‘Shah jo Risalo’ – poetry of the great Sindhi Sufi, Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, enthralled everyone with their recital. CLF Advisor Mahtab Akbar Rashdi in a session titled ‘Classical Multilingual Poetry for Today and Tomorrow’ also spoke on Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, and Sarwat Mohiuddin and Ali Raza on our heritage of classical Punjabi poetry, and Abaseen Yousufzai on the great Pushto poet Rehman Baba’s relevance for the present times. The multi-age and multi-lingual Mushaira: ‘Lala-o-Gul’ was the show-stopper of the event.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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