ISLAMABAD: For years, David Boon, 26, a resident of France Colony, a slum in Sector F-7/4, was always concerned about his community’s problems but whenever he raised his voice, he never felt heard by the concerned authorities.

Now with the upcoming local bodies elections, Mr Boon feels like he has an opportunity to gain a position and finally be heard by the district administration.

“I am lucky that I managed to complete my B.Com degree. Most people in my community are illiterate. I have tried to offer them advice but they don’t listen because I don’t have a formal position,” he told Dawn during a corner meeting of National Party in France Colony on Saturday.

Local body elections, he feels, will allow him to resolve his community’s problems. “I filed my nomination papers for the seat of Vice Chairman of Union Council (UC) 40,” he said.

The UC includes Sectors E-7 and F-7 with around 11,000 registered voters, of whom some 3000 live in the France Colony. “A large number of voters in this UC are in the France Colony so I feel like I have good chance of winning the elections,” he said.

Mr Boon’s post election goals are not elaborate, focusing on some basic needs for his community. He said that while Islamabad is a city with a high literacy rate, the Christian community lags behind. “I will work to improve educational facilities for my community and I will try to introduce technical education in the area,” he said.

“We live in the federal capital but there is no clean drinking water available in our colony. A number of houses do not have electricity or gas connections. So I will focus on helping people get basic facilities,” he said.

He said drug abuse is common among young people in the slum and he hopes to organise positive activities such as sports to steer them away from a life of addiction. “We live opposite the police station but drugs are openly sold in the slum because of which a number of young people become addicts,” he said.

He expressed hope that as a public representative he would have more clout with the police and he may be able to eradicate drug peddling from the slum.

While the elections are nonparty based, David Boon is closely associated with the National Party and plans to continue working for the party after the elections.

On the party meeting on Saturday, National Party Punjab President Ayub Malik stated that his party has fielded candidates from marginalised segments of the society in different UCs of Islamabad which is in line with the party’s policy of supporting the subjugated.

He said that NP is a secular party which is striving hard to eliminate the hate mongering in society and obtain rights of the deprived segments so that the relationship between state and society which is badly missing is revived.

Vice President of NP Punjab Mian Aftab Ahmed said that party has nominated a poor Christian woman Jamila Mushtaq as the Chairman UC 40 which is testimony to the fact that NP is the only party which is fighting for the rights of the poor and minorities.

Secretary Human Rights Affairs of NP Punjab Rehana Hashmi said that the party will ensure full participation of women, minorities and marginalised segments society in national life. She added that the main agenda of the party is to promote welfare of the working people by providing free and compulsory secondary education with relevant access to health and other services.

The meeting was attended by the large number of residents of France Colony including Christians, Muslims and Hindus.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play