KARACHI: Producers of the Future: From Keighley to Karachi, a collaborative programme of Adab Festival Pakistan and Bradford Literature Festival was launched at a local hotel with the support of the British Council Digital Collaboration Fund on Tuesday evening.

Delivering her welcome address, Ameena Saiyid, founder and director of Adab Festival Pakistan, said it’s for the first time that a festival based in the UK and a Pakistani festival have come together in curating five sessions. It’s an historic effort supported by the British Council, she said.

“When [the late] Asif Farrukhi and I organised the first Karachi Literature Festival in 2010 the purpose was to come up with a model which could be used in the entire Pakistan. We called it a movement, so that people could learn from us and hold their own festivals,” he said.

Giving details of the launch, Ms Saiyid said the title of the programme is Producers of the Future: from Keighley to Karachi. (Keighley is a small town in the UK.)

“We have five women from Pakistan — one of them Wajiha Naqvi is sitting next to me — one from each province. Then there are five women from the UK who are part of this cohort. These women were provided with tools, the connections, a lot of mentoring and contact time. They were told about how to organise a festival or creative artistic events. They attended workshops delivered by skilled practitioners from both the UK and Pakistan. There were guest speakers, mentoring sessions, roundtable discussions, and one-on-one discussions on how to hold creative events. The training went on for six months, throughout the Covid time, all done online.

“When they’d gone through the whole training programme, they were asked to produce the sessions. They were produced by collaboration — somebody from the UK who attended and somebody from Pakistan. So five digital events were produced, which will be showcased on Bradford Literature Festival website and other websites,” she said.

Some of the titles of the sessions were ‘Where are all the white voices’, ‘On a scale of one to Muslim, how Sufi are you’ etc. The curated events had 18 speakers (12 from the UK, six from Pakistan — four men and 14 women) including writers, artists, poets, musicians, publishers, academics and journalists, she added.

The message of Syima Aslam, founder and director of Bradford Literature Festival, was read out by the moderator of the launch Shama Askari. She said highlighting the value and variety of careers in the creative sector is a key priority for Bradford Literature Festival.

“It has been an honour to lead this talent development project in partnership with Adab Festival. The women who took part were recruited across the boundaries of class and geography, and the training will enrich their own communities. We’re incredibly proud of the work curated by this inspiring cohort and the marginalised conversations they have pulled into the mainstream. This project has successfully highlighted not only the impact of the art in connecting communities but also the dynamic potential of creative careers and importance of developing sustainable talent.”

Deputy Head of Mission at the British Deputy British High Commission Martin Dawson congratulated Adab Festival Pakistan, Bradford Literature Festival and British Council colleagues, saying it’s a marvellous event which addresses the women empowerment issue.

Eminent journalist Zubeida Mustafa in her closing remarks said the event was much more than what she’d expected because culture has always been her passion. “You cannot divorce culture and language. They go together. I’m glad that all the participants have been able to overcome the language barrier. When you go amongst your own people, try and communicate in your own [native] language because it creates harmony (ahangi) among people and you gain true freedom (asli khudmukhtari).”

Messages via video link of some of the young women who took part in the programme were also shown.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2022