Sunday, September 21, 2008
By Our Correspondent

LAHORE

A FABULOUS cultural extravaganza, organized by Road Association in collaboration with The Creators held at Alhamra Arts Council, is getting popularity with the Lahorites in the provincial metropolis.

Three-day ‘All Pakistan NGO’s Festival 2008’ opened on Friday and it would end on Sunday. The festival offered a great opportunity to different non-government organizations to participate and interact with the people hailing from different areas of the country, particularly from Peshawar and Quetta.

Different NGOs have also set up stalls where handicrafts, ranging from clothes to children’s toys, are being put on display for attraction of the people. President of Youth Wing of Road Association Adda Jaffery, while talking to The News, said the Association had also exhibited its model plan of recycling waste material in the centre of the festival to give an idea to the people that environment could be maintained through recycling and other methods.

She said the Association would launch this project very soon. She said participation of students was really very encouraging at the festival.

Cultural activities, including puppet show, theatre and mushairra, are being organized to highlight various literary, social and cultural aspects of the society. She said the basic objective of these activities was to point out the issues being faced by different people in the country. Talking about the stalls, she said the Association also helped the people get basic education and learn different skills so that they could also become active members of the society.

She said the Association also sought help and collaboration of different NGOs so that an understanding could be developed among the civil society organization for resolution of all the social problems of the society.

Mushairra has been organized to pay tribute to the late renowned poet Ahmed Faraz and students of different colleges will recite their poetry in this regard. About theatrical performance, she said the students would perform at the festival to highlight social issues.

The Association is not a donor-funded and it raised its revenue while holding different activities and through sale of tickets at the festival, she said, while adding that it was also working for development of skills of the domestic women workers so that they could also earn their livelihoods.

thenews.com.pk