The Impact Award recipients are making profound impacts on their respective projects. In relevance, the Impact Awards Team at Meridian International Center is very excited to give a brief update on the Impact Award recipients in Pakistan.
The IVLP Impact Awards provide follow-on support to recent IVLP participants. The primary objective is to enable recent participants to leverage and share knowledge and connections gained during their exchange experience and to design and implement innovative solutions to challenges facing their home communities, including responding to current crises. Following are the project updates:
𝐏𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐡 𝐀𝐫𝐨𝐫𝐚’𝐬 IVLP project is based on promoting tourism to historic religious sites, virtual. His IVLP Impact Award project title is Promoting Heritage Tourism in Pakistan. Pawan’s project will promote religious and heritage tourism in Pakistan by creating an educational book in English and Punjabi (Gurumukhi) about 35-40 Sikh heritage sites. The project will consist of planning, travel for photography, content creation, editing, and publication.
𝐅𝐚𝐫𝐳𝐚𝐧𝐚 𝐀𝐥𝐢 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐡 began her IVLP project titled A Global Moment in Time: Peace and Justice in May this year. This project is one of three hybrid projects belonging to the ‘A Global Moment in Time’ initiative, an initiative that addresses significant contemporary societal conditions affecting all corners of the world. Since May, she has communicated with stakeholders, trained teachers, and facilitators, and begun community workshop sessions. Her IVLP Impact Award project title is Local Level Disengagement and Rehabilitation.
𝐍𝐚𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐢 is making a strong impact through her IVLP project titled ‘Strengthening Local Governance in the Newly Merged Tribal District’, Hybrid. IVLP Impact Award project title is Enhancing Women’s Access to Public Services through Developing Women Leadership. Since launching her project, 20 women leaders have been identified to participate, representing local government officials, students, and social and political activists. Orientation sessions were organized for these women leaders to develop their leadership skills, and four district-level meetings were organized. Naheed believes that the women leaders found these activities very useful for developing their leadership and communication skills.
𝐀𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐚 𝐌𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐚𝐥 is doing extremely well with her IVLP project titled Human and Civil Rights for Marginalized Populations for the Indo-Pacific, Virtual. Her IVLP Impact Award project title is Support Network for the Transgender Community. Aisha’s project is going well with two parts of her activities successfully completed. This included a meeting with government officials to discuss the human and civil rights of marginalized populations, and two members of the US Pakistan staff were also invited. After these meetings with government agencies, Aisha and her team will lead five community workshops from July to August to sensitize and educate the local community about the support network for the transgender community.
