Your Dil: The Austin Inaugural Event
Four years ago, a group of young professionals living in New York with roots in Pakistan had a brilliant idea: they would help the children of their home country learn to read and write.
At a time when most of the world considers literacy as much of a right as water or food, that statement is simultaneously superfluous and sobering. In a country where more than half the population over fifteen is illiterate, the presence of Youth Outreach, Developments in Literacy (YOUR DIL) continues to emphasize the education of children and reminds the population of the importance of that education.
Chapters in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington D.C have so far raised funds for the ongoing education of 12,000 children in Pakistan. The latest chapter to be welcomed to this group was in Austin, and its inauguration took place last week on May 9th.
I was rather surprised when I first saw the venue of the event; set in quiet stretches of rolling hills on the outskirts of Austin, it resembled more a showcase event than a formal inauguration. But this turned out to be an excellent idea: the performances by Bereket and Riyaaz invited a very pleasant intimacy with the audience, and allowed Your Dil to keep the focus on the reason for the event.
Setting the tone for the evening was the Middle Eastern ensemble Bereket. A professional group led by UT’s own Dr. Sonia Seeman presented a series of lovely Persian, Armenian and Turkish-inspired songs. It was particularly interesting to watch the instruments being set up; I’d never seen some of these before, but I could vaguely associate some others with the better known South Asian instruments. Having usually associated Pakistan and South Asia with music of an Indian bent, it was a treat to see the influences from further up North.
But some traditions are timeless, and the Riyaaz Qawwali group was greeted with a great deal of enthusiasm by some of the audience who loved the classics. Although I certainly appreciated the vocal finesse of the group, led by Sonny Mehta, it was their effortless collaboration that really let me enjoy the performance. Towards the middle of the performance, Riyaaz seemed to have collected their own fan group as a group of girls sat closer to the stage to enjoy the music.
Despite this, I was a little disappointed at the reaction of some the rest of the audience, some of whom seemed not to care that their socializing was almost drowning out the music at times. However, I could not forget that their very presence was a big support for the newly founded chapter. What also helped was the gentle insistence of the MC that evening, who reminded the audience repeatedly of the real reason for their presence.
And these are reasons that cannot be overstated. Educating a thousand girls in Pakistan for a year has one of the highest social rates of return in the world. In fact, literacy can be described as a chain reaction, where mothers who have had an education are five times more likely to send their children to school 1.
At a time when Pakistan is facing a terrible civil crisis, the move to educate some of the world’s most deprived children is crucial for the long-term stability of the nation. But literacy, or the problem of literary in Pakistan, is not something that is confined to the country alone. The education of these children is something any right-minded individual would feel obliged to contribute to, and I appreciated the inauguration as a great opportunity to get involved in a cause like this.
References:
1. http://www.yourdil.org/factpak/
Photo Courtesy: Huda Silat
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