Mukhtar Mai's December 11th Fundraiser in Sacramento

Good job, Ras! Hope you get overwhelming response. I also recommend not to make it an exclusively Pakistani affair - the empowerment of women ought to be considered a sub-continental issue.

Ras:

On Dec. 8 (I can be fllexible for 9th), I am hosting a very small dinner at Amber India, Santa Row, for president and director of Women's World Banking. They are visiting from NY. Women's World Banking is world's largest micro-financing organization. Its member institute's are very active world-wide, especially in South Asia, Middle East including Jordan, Africa, South America and Eastern European countries including Bosnia. Later in January, I planning to organize an event to introduce silicon valley's south asian community to this finest micro financing instution.

Please let me know at (anilkapuria@yahoo.com), if you can help me invite Mukhtaran Mai to this small dinner at Amber India.

I wish good success to fundraising etc.
Hope people donot just take opportunity to pain people pakistan as backward and feudal and oppressor of women and chance to criticise pakistan and present political system. It may be bad no need to bring problems in world stage , they need to be addressed to president and related officials. Not some where in usa these internal things which is going others peoples business and just opportunity to general when make mistake of remark about canada visa stuff. This is reason one should be like cautious of "do gooders" at cost of reputation of country for personal glory and money collection.

What's this; Fund raising for a woman falsely accusing some persons of the opposite gender as rapists?

Ras,
Good luck for the event. I am her fan. Let me know (through chowk's personal mail system) if I can be of any help.

ahmedmadani sahib,
I may have got you wrong, and if so I would like to apologise. But why is it wrong to criticize or totally trash a country or nationality? I know that you have something up your sleeve, something that I am not seeing. Could you please let me know? If it is the "kashmir" "angle" then I understand and you need not reply.

Regards.

Ras,

I meant .... "could I be of any financial help". Sorry for sounding crass, but that is all that I can do.

I had stated earlier, I do not know where, that Pakistan may leap-frog India in the progress to democracy. This is quite commonplace in technology, but let me try to guess why it may be true for a social process.

A long time back, in India but in a region as uncivilized as that in Pakistan where Mai got raped, a woman called Phoolan Devi got raped. Rape has more to do with power, at times political power, than sex. Phoolan reacted against that dominant power structure by taking up the gun and mowing down hundreds (according to the press tens) of those who propped up that power structure. But she did not have any "alternative" as a replacement, she had the "same". This "same" helped her get elected to the Lok Sabha down the road and also got her killed in front of her "protected and exclusive" residence in Delhi. The "same" that she did not change, survived ... just like that which the romantic youth (getting killed in Swat and Waziristan) are willing to die for, guised in a different name. Of course, romantics like zeemax here, will build on the romance oblivious to the "ability for change".

Mai has done something different and something which is not "romantic" at all. She has tapped into "historical, i.e. long term assets for change" instead of the romantic "gun". She has tapped into "stuff" like schools. I do not know much about Pakistan, but I do know that in Chattisgarh (India) the guys who are the first to be killed by thec mafioso unions are "teachers" and doctors who "EXPLAIN THE DISEASE BEFORE PRESCRIBING DRUGS".

Good luck Pakistan.

Thanks for the encouragement from Indian origin readers.

Anil & GT: Please check your messages tomorrow


madani Sahib and teshahji here is another one for you

by the late Mir's daughter Fatima Bhutto in The News

http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=83845

Please read it carefully..

Ras

I know MM quite well and see her fairly regularly, she lives about 100kms from me. I have known about this fundraiser for a while and have been liasing with Jack Loomis to see if IU could get an article done in time for the dinner...but events conspired against me, and it was not to be. MM and Naseem are flying tomorrow (3rd) IIRC, and are due back in Pakistan on 13 or 14 of December...will see them before Eid.

The work that her NGO does is good...they hve recently be thoroughly audited by IRC, a very big American NGO, and they found no financial irregularities, but there are a few things to 'tidy up' on the operational and institutional side, but nothing dramatic.

The girls school is a treat to see...the children are confidant and outgoing, the teachers happy in their work and delivering an above standard job. All in all, a useful NGO.

teshah #4 I fail to understand why you have this animosity towards Mukhtaran Mai to the extent that you are prepared to claim the exact opposite of what you know to be true.

I salute to that great lady!

Chris Cork,

Thanks for reading and replying back.

I have a nice picture of you and Agha with Mukhtar coutesey

of Jack. Please keep up your good work and write something

on Mukhtar here on CHOWK around the new year.


For Bay area and Sacramento residents (especially) we are

pushing tickets for the main event these days.


RE: tahmed32 #10 your question is very valid. But I believe

that Shahji was just being sarcastic.

RE: #11 augmentin: Thanks. Many of us tend to agree.

For those readers interested in this cause and tickets

please visit the following website:

http://www.sacvalleychapter.org/

You can donate, purchase tickets and get all kinds of

information on Mukhtar here.

I just wanted to add (happened after I wrote this article)

that CAIR (Sacramento Valley Chapter) has also become a

major sponsor of this Fundraiser.

Ras: Great job you are doing. I went to the Mukhtaran Mai website you mentioned, filled out the donation form, and just put a small donation in the mail.

I liked what this friend of yours said - this is not about the past, it is about the future. And it is generally recognized that girls education is probably the most productive investment one can make for the future because of the affect on her children.

I would suggest linking up with DIL (Developments in Literacy, also California based) who as you I am sure know have been working hard for several years now introducing schools in Pakistan. Another NGO, MMBMT, has also introduced a number of girls schools in remote areas in Mianwali, and could probably provide some useful advice.

Anil: Microcredit operations are a natural complement to women's education. So, your idea of inviting Mukhtaran Mai to this event is a very good one. Once girls have completed school education, many of them can then progress to some income generating opportunity - and access to microcredit makes that possible.

Mukhtaran Mai has more courage, valor and n character than the entire high brass of our 'brave army' only if she was our army chief....we wouldnt the mess we r..

Tahmed sahab ....teshah is a qadiyani senile budha....thats a textbook definition of chip on the shoulder....u dont make sense out of it...u just laugh n clap as u would at bandar tamasha...