“Pashtuns don’t have its own media, only a few print media outlets are owned by Pashtuns, I would say the Pashtuns must focus on having their own media, run and managed by them,” Khattak remarked.
Dr Almas Khan, professor at the Virginia Tech said: “Pashtuns can solve most of their problems by having a scientific approach to issues.”
Zebu Jilani, a Pashtun woman volunteer and intellectual, stressed the Pashtuns in America to play their role paying back to the society, adding “the PACA don’t need time but also financial resources for the community.”
Rana Mohmand, a Pashtun poet from Afghanistan highlighted the challenges faced by the Pashtun women. She urged the Pashtun women to come forward and solve their problems and to work along with the men. She said that women should play their own role.
“The basic purpose of the conference is to create an awareness among the Pashtun nation about their language and culture”,
Qasim Yousafzai, the PACA member and moderator of the conference told.
“Languages and cultures are disappearing from the world very fast”, he said. “Every Pashtun should work hard to keep this language and culture not only alive but to promote it on every possible means”, Yousafzai told reporters.
He said that language and culture has become very low priority, “In order to promote it and create awareness, it is the responsibility of every community member to play his/her role”, he said.
Earlier, Asnaf Qadir, another PACA board member informed the participants about the day-long conference. He presented the whole agenda including speeches, youth show, mushaira and followed by music.
Amjad Ali, PACA youth director, presented a youth show including poems by the Pashtun children, paintings and a variety of other presentation.
The youth show was followed by mushaira where Pashtun poets presented their poems and enthralled the participants of the conference.
Engineer Mohmand, a California based Pashtun singer, received great appreciation from the participants of the second Pashtu International Conference. He sung different popular songs of Baba-e-Ghazal Amir Hamza Khan Shinwari, Ghani Khan and others.