Pakistan Looks to Reform Madrasas

Reuters reports that President Musharraf has reached out to the state of West Bengal in India seeking to replicate their success in reforming Pakistan's madrasas (religious schools).


Apparently West Bengal's madrasas are a model of tolerance, places where Christian and Hindu students feel comfortable studying. This is a very heartening move on the part of the Pakistani government as the 12,000 madrasas, which provide schooling to "about one million boys from impoverished families", have become breeding grounds for religious extremists who have contributed to religion-based violence in Pakistan.

The model in West Bengal has the state running half the madrasas. Adopting this model would likely require significant and a very welcome investment in the Pakistan school system. DIL currently runs some government schools in Sheikhupura, near Lahore in order to improve the quality of education.

YOUR DIL to Honor Gideon Yago of MTV at Annual Gala

We're very excited to announce that Gideon Yago of MTV News will be the 2006 recipiant of the YOUR DIL Leadership Award.



Gideon's documentary, "Aftershock: Gideon Yago's Diary from Pakistan" was just nominated for an Emmy Award. When Gideon's video diary aired last year, there was very little press coverage of the South Asian earthquake and we credit him with bringing information about the severity of the situation to the youth of America, eventually being a part of a positive shift in attention that occured around December, narrowly averting a potentially massive humanitarian crisis.

For being the voice of the victims of the earthquake when few other news outlets were paying attention, we're proud to honor Gideon Yago at "A Night on the Indus" our annual gala on September 15.

Going to Pakistan this Summer? Visit a DIL School!

For those of you planning to go to Pakistan during the summer holidays, it would be great if you took the time out to visit some of the DIL schools while there. The kids love having visitors, showing off for them, learning from them. You'll get a great perspective on how important our work is and why we all spend so much time raising money for this cause.

There are DIL projects near all the large Pakistani cities...click here to find the one closest to you.

If you are interested in visiting a school, please get in touch with Zeba Shafi via email well in advance of your visiting day so she can help you arrange the logistics.

I really hope some of you can visit our kids...and if you do, let us know how it went/what you thought! Make sure to take some candy for them if you go...

The Board Changes...

One of the best things about being a part of YOUR DIL is the amazing, talented, fun people we’ve met. The board is like a cute, little, slightly dysfunctional family. Most of us didn’t know each other before YOUR DIL, but have become very close over the past year and a half despite many differences in personality and interests. Considering we talk to each more than we talk to our families or other friends, this isn’t surprising, and what connects us all is a deep concern for Pakistan and a desire to find a way to have fun while making a difference.


So while, we’re extremely happy for the positive changes in our volunteers’ lives, we’re pretty broken up to lose two of our founders, our Co-Directors of Fundraising, Sabeen Ali and Amna Nawaz to other cities, Boston and Washington DC respectively. Sabeen (who just got engaged to YD founder Hashim Mian!) is moving to Boston to pursue her MBA at Harvard and Amna is moving to DC after a promotion, on a new assignment for NBC (she was a producer at Dateline).



(Amna Nawaz and Sabeen Ali at "Spring into Action" on April 6)

Both are responsible for the YD events all of you have attended and have helped make each event better than the one previous. We’ve had some great laughs and amazing experiences with both, and I know I speak for the rest of the board when I say we will miss them tremendously. So thank you Sabeen and Amna for your dedication, hard work and good humor. And best of luck! Come back and visit often and make sure to either start (as in Boston) or join (as in DC) the local YD chapter!

As a result, there have been some changes to the board that we are very excited about. Our Director of Volunteer and Community relations, Bilal Khan (who just married YD volunteer Komal Hanif!) moved over to take Sabeen’s position and replacing Amna will be Sophia Umar, long-time YD volunteer who has helped on every single event since our inception. Both are very hard working and committed to Pakistan and are going to be great in their new roles, starting with running our Gala, “A Night on the Indus”. Congrats Bilal and Sophia!

Replacing Bilal as co-Director of Volunteer and Community Relations will be Madeeha Halim, who worked tirelessly on the Strings concert and keeps us in stitches with the most amazing collection of emoticons you’ve ever seen. Welcome Mads!

We’d also like to welcome Ali Nazar who will be working with YD Secretary Danish Iqbal on maintaining and expanding our website.

BTW, it may sound from the above that we’re not only slightly dysfunctional, but also slightly incestuous (with all the engagements and weddings), but the couples knew each other outside and before YD. We do hear, however, that at least one couple out there met at one of our events and just got engaged?! We’d love to hear you story…!

Congrats again to our new directors and best of luck and a big THANK YOU to those leaving us!

A Night on the Indus - YOUR DIL Gala Sept 15!

On September 15, 2006 YOUR DIL will host it's second fundraising gala at the Westside Lounge in Manhattan. We'll be turning the 10,000 square foot loft into a traditional Pakistani village complete with street vendors, sheeshas, mehndi and other surprises! We'll have more info about the event soon, so stay tuned to our A Night On The Indus webpage...

DIL Retreat 2006

(From L to R: Back Row - Mehar Jawad (DIL DC), Samar Shaheryar (YD Prez), Tasnim Shaheryar (DIL Prez), Fiza Shah (Chairperson), Jameelah Fakhri (DIL LA). Front Row - Hashmat Saeed (Treasurer), Sara Abbasi (Secretary), Najmi Sarwar (DIL NYC), Saeeda Fancy (VP))

This year I had the pleasure of joining the DIL Executive Board on their annual strategy retreat over the fourth of July weekend. We spent two days discussing fundraising, our five-year plan, the progress of our schools and how to improve them, basically how to take DIL to the next level. It was an eye-opening experience. The leaders of this organization are all dedicated, intelligent people who take significant time out from their busy schedules to give back to Pakistan. And getting a direct update about the schools from those who visit most of them annually was heartening. When there is a problem with a school it is tackled head-on. Every project is under meticulous scrutiny at all times, test scores and graduation rates are closely watched, and almost all expenses have to be approved by the board in the US.

YOUR DIL as a chapter, thanks to all of you, our wonderful patrons and volunteers, is doing remarkably well. We have beaten most fundraising targets and continue to grow. I'm incredibly proud of our team and the generous people who attend our events.

DIL wants to roughly double by 2010, educating 20,000 students by then (currently 11,000). We hope with your support, YOUR DIL will continue to contribute significantly to the growth of DIL. We have chapters in Chicago, DC and LA currently in the works. If you are interested in being a part of any of these, or want to start a chapter in your own city, please drop me a line at samar@yourdil.org.