‘Umeed Jawan’ interventions may bring change

Not all interventions are bad or threatening, thus goes the message that is picked up from the 'Umeed Jawan' (youthful hope or bright hope) interventions that the organisation "Change" wants to put in place for citizens' awareness and for a number of such noble purposes that include, among others, peace, tolerance and fraternity. The sole objective as well as the ultimate goal is building up an impregnable, invincible Pakistan through its main engine of energy i.e the youth whose immense energy and potential need to be harnessed with vision, sustained effort and media support. These views were expressed by Mumtaz Hussain, Executive Director, Center For Health and Gender Equality (Change) while talking to The News here the other day.
At first instance, the word intervention gives the impression as if it has something to do with the traditional interventionist practices, The News asked. The Change director replied that in no way should it be misconstrued that way since his organisation's sole aim and ultimate goal is sustained enlightenment of the younger generation as well as other categories of citizens who possess more than sufficient potential to transform the nation into one of the most envied nations of the globe. The only thing needed is putting in place a mechanism that can harness these energies and such an immense potential and turn it into complete empowerment.
The News was informed at his point that the first phase of this nation-building project would start from citizens' mass awareness in Punjab through media and the title of the project is: 'Informing citizens through effective mainstream Media Advocacy on 'Umeed Jawan' Interventions in Punjab'.
When asked what were the inadequacies identified and what were the expectations, the Change office-bearer responded, "The media of Pakistan is quite a vibrant and has outsmarted many of the international contemporaries which have not yet cleansed themselves of narrow biases. It is because of this outstanding performance of Pakistani media that we in particular and the public in general have started pinning more hopes on the national media."
The organiser said further that in the area of development, communication media does play a crucial role in the societal change and for the change to be effective and lasting, media has to be looked at in a contextual and integrated way. In this context, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are important tools in achieving this process but their use is not an end in itself. Interpersonal, group and traditional communication must also play a fundamental role for peace and tolerance. Therefore, Change will use these popular tools of communication vis-à-vis the current media importance (whose impact is spreading fast) with the idea of building the soft image of nation through mainstream youth engagement under 'Umeed Jawan' interventions. The interventions, among other things, include focusing on the issues, implementation and public awareness."
This scribe asked as to what were the priority areas that have been identified. Change said, "We will concentrate on peace promotion, peaceful co-existence, negation to hate speeches and campaign for promoting allegiance to available laws with complete stress on National Action Plan (NAP) for countering violent extremism in Pakistan".
What were the hopes other than the expectations from media, The News asked. The reply was, "The masses of Pakistan, despite a multitude of problems like unemployment, poverty, remorselessness, social taboos, drugs, guns and politics, have always been in the forefront of movements and political changes. However, it is unfortunate that the masses and particularly the youth find themselves trapped in a culture marked by guns, violence and drugs. All this has resulted in widespread lawlessness, shattered confidence in law and break-up of the social fabric".
How big targets can be achieved when the socio-economic growth is eclipsed by population explosion? The Change director said, " This substantial increase in the population presents both opportunities and challenges, which need to be clearly analysed, understood and responded to by the policy makers. There is an incessant need now to combine youth development work spread over various sectors (i.e. youth, labour, health, education, population, sports, culture, finance, human development, and continuous professional development, etc).
And there is also a need for constructive citizens' engagement in the related processes at various stages including policy development, planning, implementation, monitoring and accountability."
As for the strategies, the main strategy would be analysing the multi-layered and complex factors which have caused violent extremism and conflicts among youth. Some of the reasons may be found in structural (including economic, social, cultural and political) issues relating to opportunities, problems and inter-ethnic relations.
Change will also work on promotion of peace dialogue, tolerance, brotherhood, interfaith harmony, civic education and cultural co-existence and the youth would be engaged in the area of sports, culture & art, education, Sufi poetry, skills development, literature, inter religious co-existence, paintings, economic empowerment, exchange programmes and networking. "Furthermore, for media advocacy on above mentioned interventions of 'Umeed Jawan' we would engage leading intellectuals, peace experts, cultural experts, youth leaders and young parliamentarians of national as well as provincial assemblies."
The contents to be used throughout the process include, inter alia, motivating the citizens' (youth) leadership towards dialogue, promotion of the culture of acceptance and tolerance, youth's social transformation, promotion of NAP as well as state integrity, rule of law and focus on political tolerance including the focus on the perspective of political parties in connection with their manifestoes for peace and tolerance.