ISLAMABAD: “This is amazing. I have never seen such a huge crowd; not even at my exhibitions here at the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA),” Nigar Nazar, Pakistan’s first woman cartoonist and the face behind Gogi, the famous cartoon character, said as she waited for her turn to enter the PNCA lawns which were hosting a family event in connection with the annual UN Day.

Being a weekend, the number of visitors to the event was extraordinary. A stream of vehicles could be seen heading towards the venue, trying to find the parking lot, which soon ran out of space. People were left with no choice but to park their cars along the road and head to the venue. All this while, traffic police officials remained on their toes.

The event saw various UN agencies set up their stalls including Unesco, UNAid, UNWomen, IOM, UNFPA, FAO, IFAD, WFP, UNHabitat, OCHA, Unido and many more.

The highlight of the event, however, was the ‘UN Career Booth’ which remained crowded throughout the day.

“We had an overwhelming response; we were not expecting such a large crowd,” said Ms Rafia, HR officer at one of the agencies.

“We started at 3pm, and it is almost 8pm but we are still receiving young university graduates, who want guidance on how to apply for jobs in the UN agencies,” she said.

When asked if they were advertising about vacancies in the UN bodies at the booth, she said: “We are not here to tell people about the opportunities; we are here to guide them about how to apply, what all agencies are operating in Pakistan and what specific roles they would be looking for.”

Head of Education Unesco Islamabad Zafar Hayat Malik said: “People basically do not understand what the UN mandate is. Therefore, we want to bring the UN closer to the people to enable it to serve them better.”

“We will be organising more such events in the coming days in order to interact with people and educate them about the entire UN system,” Mr Malik said.

Sania Taimur, UNAids community-led response adviser for Pakistan and Afghanistan, who was busy interacting with visitors, said: “We’ve realised that with time, the stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV/Aids is increasing a lot. Therefore, this is one of the ways through which we can raise awareness and have open discussion with people.”

“We are working all across the country. UNAids is a joint programme of all UN agencies, and we partner with them as well as other community-based organisations,” she added.

International Labour Organisation (ILO) Country Director Geir T. Tonstol said his organisation was also part of the UN family in Pakistan.

“This year the United Nations wanted to mark the UN Day by having a public event where people could come and learn about what the UN as well as the ILO had been doing in Pakistan,” he added.

Mr Tonstol further said they had a long history of collaboration with Pakistan.

“We work together with the government, employers’ organisations as well as workers organisations and support decent work in different sectors of the economy,” he said, adding, “we have signed a decent work country programme with Pakistan to ensure that labour standards are ratified and implemented”.

On the entertainment front, several stalls engaged people through various activities and giveaways. Food stalls that offered a variety of items were equally crowded.

A young visitor, Mohammad Irtiza, said he was happy to have won a bag of goodies at one of the stalls.

They asked me a question, and gave me choices. I gave the correct answer,” the overjoyed teenager said.

The concluding event of the day was a concert by famous artist Shae Gill who was received by the audience, comprising youngsters, with cheers and applause.

“We have come here to listen to Shae Gill. You do not get a lot of opportunities to attend concerts of your favourite singers; therefore, we could not miss it,” Shazil Sheikh and Mohammad Rafae, two teenagers in the crowd, said.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2024