Yorkshire forum to help boost budding Pakistani talent

Karachi
A forum comprising Britons of Pakistani origin based in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, aims to help young Pakistani artistes to make a way for themselves in the mainstream media to help promote the local culture among the generations of Pakistani Britons born and bred in the United Kingdom.
Addressing journalists at the Karachi Press Club on Wednesday afternoon, Madiha Ansari, secretary of the Yorkshire Adabi Forum, lamented that young people in Pakistan were not being given due recognition in the field of arts.
She said that while many artistes were making a marking on the social media, they, despite their oozing talents, were not getting their due in the mainstream media.
“We at the Yorkshire Adabi Forum have taken it upon ourselves to help recognise Pakistani social media talent and bring them out on an international platform,” said Ansari.
She announced that the “Hum Bhi Hain: Arts Through Social Media” was a project the aims of which, in a nutshell, were to recognise and celebrate social media talent, and to help bridge the gaps that may arise from time to time in the social media and mainstream media.
However, she said that the talent recognised by the social media should enable these young folk to find their way into the mainstream media, but that was not quite the case.
She said that there were children in England who had been born and bred in that set-up and to whom the culture and land of their forefathers was absolutely alien.
This budding talent, were they to be given a chance in the mainstream media, would go a long way in acquainting this generation with their moorings and their roots, which in turn, would go a long way in breeding a more harmonious international culture.
She said that the forum would be staging the famous love story of the region, “Sassi-Pannu”, in Yorkshire which would be bilingual for the convenience of the children of Pakistani origin for whom the language of the older generation was rather alien.
Mansoor Qureshi, a young artiste of Karachi, also spoke about the dearth of attention towards young talent and wondered as to why the channels did not encourage people from the social media.