Community Appraisal and Motivation Programme (CAMP) organised the Fata & Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Youth Cultural Festival in Islamabad on Wednesday. The festival hosts exhibits put up by youth and residents from Fata and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
More than 250 residents of the tribal belt and guests took part in the one-day festival organised at Islamabad's Hotel Margalla. The festival was arranged as part of CAMP's ongoing Communities for Change (CFC) project. The CFC project, supported by the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany and British High Commission, is a leading development intervention in the region of Fata on issues related to peace, security and human rights.
The project aims at empowering the communities of Fata to assert and protect their social, political and economic rights as well as actively develop their resilience to sectarian and inter-tribal conflicts and influences. The festival, which started at 10:00 am, featured stalls set up by representatives of all seven agencies of Fata and students of the Fine Arts Department of Peshawar University.
Space for a special stall was provided to students of the PU who represented Chitral at the festival. All representatives had displayed cultural antiques, musical instruments, paintings, decorations etc at their stalls which symbolised cultural traits specific to each agency.
The purpose of the festival was to bring to light the, hitherto largely, hidden cultural practices, traditions and rich diversity of the tribal region. It is hoped that the festival will also serve to dispel any misperceptions regarding the youth of Fata and prove to the world that the people of the tribal region want to live a life of peace and security.
Speaking at the event, KP Provincial Minister for Sports, Tourism, Youth and Culture, Syed Aqil Shah thanked CAMP for organising a youth cultural festival for the people of Fata. He said that provincial government was also making efforts to organise such activities despite adversity and prevalent security threats to present a softer and more peace-loving side of the Pakhuns.
The Minister said that unemployment was a serious problem for the people of Fata and the government was trying to draft a youth-policy to address these issues. Aqil Shah offered that if CAMP organises any festival or programme in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa related to the youth then the KP tourism department will fully sponsor any such activity.
Member of National Assembly, Maulana Abdul Malik appreciated CAMP's efforts for peace building in the region. He said that in the future Maliks of Fata should be made a part of such festivals so that the message penetrates all levels of Fata's society. Noted journalist and Anchor, Salim Safi said that one of the unfortunate tragedies of Fata was that the Mosque and the Hujra had been separated. However, he congratulated CAMP on bringing them together, once more, in today's function.
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