Transforming communities

The Queen’s Young Leaders Programme celebrates and supports young people aged 18-29 from across the Commonwealth who are making exceptional changes in their communities. The Programme, which started in 2014, has a community of 240 change-makers.

This year, three Pakistanis – Haroon Yasin, Hassan Mujtaba Zaidi, Mahnoor Syed – were amongst the winners of the Queen’s Young Leaders Award. They will receive training and mentoring in a one-week residential programme in the UK.

Sights and sounds

“I’m from Syria, but I study at American University of Beirut in Lebanon. My experience at Karachi Youth Model United Nations (KYMUN) is good so far. The young people are really looking forward to convince their chairs that they can do something, that they can bring about change in the society. The MUNs I’ve attended back at home are different; I guess it's the culture. I think there’s lot of room for improvement at KYMUN. For one, they should train the participants in more professional manner. There are 14 year olds as well as 20 year olds attending this KYMUN and most of the time the former are shy to speak out. In one of our committee session, I decided not to accept any motion to hear anyone who had already spoken because I wanted to encourage the ones who were reluctant to participate. I think MUNs are a great platform to teach youth to raise their voice; it’ll change the way they think.”

Jaffer, International Delegate, UNWOMEN KYMUN VII

The world is my canvas

Toyota Dream Car Art Contest held in around 80 countries across the globe encourages children to bring their imagination in creating dream cars in the form of art. Pakistan has celebrated its victory as Global Winner twice in past years. Children are broadly divided into three categories as per age. The contest also encourages differently-abled children to participate.

CEO Indus Motor Company Mr. Ali Asghar Jamali said, “Pakistanis are immensely gifted. It is very unfortunate that we do not have sufficient platforms to bring this talent out to its full extent. This time around, we extended our circle and reached 1,147 schools across Pakistan. Total number of artworks received this year was around 38,000, placing Pakistan in the 3rd position in the world to have received the highest number of drawings.

The winners of the competition from Pakistan are: Umamah Asif, Seemal and Syed Wali Zaidi, AmnaTassaduq, Muhammad Yousuf, Halima Sadiam MoosaSatti, Sufiyan Salman, Laraib Zainab, Umais Rasheed, Hira Arslan and Arsalan Bin Ayub.

By SZ