Dr Senta honoured for transforming a village

LAHORE:Governor Punjab Chaudhry Sarwar conferred an award to Dr Senta Maria Anna Siller at a ceremony in recognition of her services for transforming a village in Punjab with her vision and training of the local girls to make and sell their dolls at the Governor’s House here on Friday.

Dr Senta’s friends also hosted an evening in her honour at Alhamra Art Gallery where her spouse gave her a surprise by putting her drawings on exhibit. The dolls were of course there. Dr Senta first visited Pakistan in 1991 on the invitation of her student Amjad Ali, who belonged to Thatta Ghulamka Dhiroka, a small village in Okara.

Dr Senta told The News she made a film ‘One day in Thatta’ to raise money. She also started working on Thatta Kedona, a project for village development in 1993 and taught the girls and produced dolls with them until 2007.

Amjad paid tribute to Dr Senta Siller and her spouse Dr Norbert Pintsch for the many things they did for the people. By enabling the girls to go abroad and sell their products, Senta brought great change in the village life which did not have electricity, school and dispensary etc. Now there is a school, dispensary, solar panels and a two-storey community centre, the credit for which goes to Senta. In all, she established four centres for women at the different places. She also built a carpeted road in the village which is in a bad condition now. “I never thought I will come here. I am delighted to see how the people of Ghulamka became independent. Now there are four women centres in the village. The exhibition of my work is a surprise to me,” said Senta Siller, who has trained women to make dolls in four countries including one in Africa and in South America.

Her dolls and drawings were on display in the gallery. The artisans make ten couples of 50 and 20 centimetres, among them are Sindhi, Makrani, Balochi, Kalashi, the common Pakistani couple, Hazara couple and a Kashmiri girl.

Senta informed that actually she lived with these communities. Apart from the regular sizes, dolls were in earrings, on wall hangings, in bracelets and in miniature size. Hand-crafted camels with riders were also on display there.