Qazi Asif Ali is our IVLP alumnus. He went to the U.S. for this exchange program from March 26th to April 13, 2012, under the theme, “Promoting Transparency and Fighting Corruption”. This program proved to be a great turning point in his life and journalistic career. “All that I have learned during the three weeks changed my life as a journalist,” shared Qazi.
This program increased his ability to analyze the world. It changed the way of analyzing the situation. Journalistically, his working ability and knowledge improved. Visiting different institutions, meeting with the American people, the U.S. economy, transparency in government, culture, and hospitability showed me a new world. “I returned with image and concept of that new world. A new way of thinking and working”.
After coming back to Pakistan, Qazi Asif Ali started to train aspiring journalists across the country considering all that he learned during his exchange program. The objective was to produce technically well-informed and knowledgeable journalists. Qazi established his own news organization based on mobile journalism (MoJo) on a small scale after getting registration from the Government of Pakistan as well as the Provincial Government of Sindh. This organization was created as a wire service called Video News Service (VNS) and it works in three languages, English, Urdu, and Sindhi. He set up this organization with his own available resources and help from his journalistic colleagues. The main function of this organization was to highlight the problems of people from remote areas of Pakistan, who were neglected in the mainstream media. Youth worked for us as contributors and send us stories through mobile phones. But this work was badly affected during the pandemic and now we are trying to get back on track. “The reflection of the return from America on our lives is shown in this way and is visible. We didn’t let efforts of IVLP go to waste.” Qazi Asif Ali.
