It was a few months ago that I read about the inauguration of the first internet cafe for the blind in Islamabad. I had wanted to write about it earlier but somehow skipped my mind, until the recent discussion on Islamabad allowed me to jog my memory a bit. I do want to share the news, even if a bit belatedly, because it is so uplifting and empowering.
According to a report in The Daily Times, the country’s first-ever Internet café for the visually impaired was inaugurated with the help of generous funding from the World Bank and the Pakistan Foundation Fighting Blindness (PFFB).
It appears that the software technology that enables such a user experience for the blind was introduced to Pakistan by an ATP regular, Aqil Sajjad. The software used by the internet cafe is called JAWS, and was first introduced by Aqil to Pakistan in 1999. Aqil has since then moved to the US for graduate studies in Physics, but the software is now more widely available to the blind in Pakistan, and making a dramatic difference in their lives.
A few years back I had the distinct honor of helping the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA). IFMSA is an international umbrella network for all the national organizations of medical students. It has done terrific work since the second world war in mobilizing medical students to provide care and service in many therapeutic, and especially public health concerns. I was helping IFMSA put together a major congress and conference on its 50th anniversary celebrations - it was going to be a re-birth of an organization that had been successful in its first 50 years of xistence, and wanted to grow into the next stage of a global entity serving humanity.
One of the things I realized during that experience was the need in most non-profit ventures to learn about fundraising. That uphill battle becomes even more difficult when it comes to youth organizations that do not always have experienced staff, and where most people’s efforts are largely voluntary. Hence, at that time, a few of us published two documents that we thought would help students organize non-profit activities in their communities, and actually raise funds not just locally, but internationally. We were sort of amateurs ourselves, but wanted to have the knowledge and experience we had gained in the fundraising process to be distributed widely. These documents are given here:
I am reminded of the above because one of the IFMSA colleagues just posted a note on our mail server regarding a nice online fundraising organization tool for small non-profits raising monies. I am posting it in its entirety below:
Probably one of the most discussed topics in IFMSA is fundraising. I have found a tool on the net that can help you fundraise from individuals quite easily and wanted to share this with you. Just wanted to share this with you, it may be of help in funding your project. The tool is called Fundable and can be found athttp://www.fundable.org
How does it work: you have a project and have a set fundraising target. Individuals can donate through the web with their creditcard or paypal. The individuals are only charged if your fundraising target is met, so there is no risk for the donors that the project doesn’t go through finally. There is however an options for donors to give you money regardless whether the target is met or not.
The service is not free of charge, if you reach your target, 7% is deducted to cover for the costs. But if you don’t reach your target, it doesn’t cost you a thing. Furthermore you don’t have to pay bank-costs for receiving creditcard payments.
To me this seems a perfect tool for small projects that don’t require a lot of funds. You can promote your project and refer possible donors to this site. You could even split your project in different stages to get funding for each stage. It also helps you to set realistic goals for fundraising efforts as you must reach your target to get your money This is just a tool, so you still need to approach donors yourselves. You will still need to make a good proposal, find possible donors and ask them for money. This tool just helps you to cash in.
A news report, and some gruesome pictures associated with it, recently caught my attention. I had not heard about the turtle population in Pakistan for many years now, and was somehow under the impression that steps taken by government to ban poaching and export had resulted in significant protection of the turtle habitats.
Well, according to the news item, a study conducted by the WWF-Pakistan at the Taunsa Wildlife Sanctuary concluded that that the turtle population not only faces brutality at the hands of poachers, but is also under threat of extinction.
Unlike many other topics that people in our country love to discuss around chai-time, protection of wildlife, and in this case turtles, has never gained popularity. The result of our collective social apathy towards the issue has resulted in significant loss of wildlife, and endangerment of precious species.
Pakistan is known to have at least eight freshwater turtle and two tortoise species. These are mostly found along the rivers in Sindh and Punjab, and also in parts of NWFP. The spotted pond turtle, crowned river turtle and Afghan tortoise are some of the more well known species, which are also included in the IUCN Red Data Book’s List of Internationally Threatened Species.
It is understood that the various body parts of the turtle, especially the fresh water turtle, have become ‘hot export items’. Fisherman in Sindh and Punjab are found illegally hunting turtles and in some cases, a turtle is killed for a mere payment of 2 to 4 US dollars. The bulk of turtle exports, worth millions of dollars, are destined for Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, China and Taiwan where the soft shells and chest pellicles of the turtles are in the manufacture of Traditional Chinese Medicines. The practitioners of these medicines believe that the turtle shells are highly effective for purifying blood and curing many diseases.
According to a source, Pakistani local entrepreneurs in northern Punjab realized the export value of freshwater turtles in the early 1990s when workers of South Korean company ‘Daewoo’ came there to build a six-lane highway. Read the rest of this entry »
I have been away for a long while. In 15 days I visited more than 15 cities in 3 continents….It was exhausting. But the most exciting part of it was to be in China just before the Chinese New Year. It is the Year of the Boar/Pig, and guess what my Chinese name could mean? Mr. Zhu, i.e. Mr. Pig. While in China I had some of the most tasty food - for all those who may travel there, I highly recommend asking your hosts to take you to Szechuan or Hunan food places. And if you can, try the hot pot. yum!!! Along the way I was also some crazy food, like Yak’s Penis Soup, Bee Larvae, and Boiled Chicken Feet. Let’s just say I quickly used my “I am a Muslim and cannot eat” card to get out of it.
Now on to something a bit more serious. L forwarded me a link to this Def Poetry by Suheir Hammad. It is fascinating. All power to her! If you haven’t been to such recitals below, all I can say is that the emotions embedded in the words and the delivery are infectious and totally overwhelming.
Suheir Hammad’s bio:Suheir Hammad was born in Amman, Jordan to Palestinian refugee parents on October 25, 1973. Suheir’s family immigrated to Brooklyn NY when Suheir was five years old, and she was raised there until the age of sixteen. Her parents moved to Staten Island while Suheir was in high school. Enough of that personal history, thanks.
Suheir has been able to travel throughout the world via her poetry. She has read her poems in Ivy League Universities and on Brooklyn’s street corners. Her work has appeared in award winning anthologies, and in zines stapled together by queer youth collectives. As far as we know, Suheir was the first Palestinian starring in a Broadway show, and she continues to be the first Palestinian in many artistic spaces throughout the States.
I read several parts of the 3rd IPCC asssessment report when I was in the process of compiling my Ph.D thesis. Several colleagues and professors had been contributors, and I was fascinated how a topic that had such high agreement within the scientists was still deeply conetentious in the public press and media. and that too about the science. It was unbelievable that Texas (not only) politicians were questioning the sceintific facts even without looking at the data.
Now the new IPCC report has been published, and once again, with even clearer technical data, and pursuasive scientific arguments, one of the largest global teams of scientists working together have announced that (a) global warming is happening - and is getting worse, and (b) there is >90% chance that human beings are responsible for it. Our Co2 emissions, coupled with emissions of methane, DMS, sulfates, soot etc are all contributing to it. A wonderful summary of the results has been done by Green Car Congress’ Mike Milliken. See here. The official IPCC summary document is here.
The only big question left for me in this debate is: what are we doing about it? Kyoto protocol is dead and the regulatory networks around the world are moving at a dastardly slow pace in regulating the fuel economies and CO2 emissions from vehicles and industries. US may, in the next 5 years move to a cap-and-trade system for CO2 emissions but even that will only show effects over a very long time. I think our modern day governments and institutions are, frankly, failing us in this regard. So I vote to make an average citizen in chanrge and let them play the critical role in forcing a change in our behavior.Here’s an idea: Can an average consumer participate in the global carbon credit trading system and benefit from it while moving to a lower carbon lifestyle? No, not the Terrapass type feel-good buy-some-carbon-credit-and-still-do-what-you-do stuff, but actually finding a consumer benefit in reducing waste and emissions? Can we insititute tax credits for consumers if they have lower annual carbon foot print? Will they get their sales tax (or equivalent in other countries) back if they purchase a lower carbon product when a cheaper higher carbon emittin product was available?
Sam’s Club and Tesco are starting to put the Carbon content on their products (as Terrapass reported). Can we build a reliable and verfiable system so individuals could trade their carbon credits and at the same time get financial benefits for having a reduced carbon foot print? What about linking it to college loans or PEL grants programs? I am just thinking aloud –> I am sure there are many ways to cut this pie and some would make for great startup ideas!!!
This morning, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released
its first installment on the state of climate change science. This Summary
for Policy Makers (SPM) synthesizes the current understanding of the human
influence on climate change, observed evidence of warming, and projects
future climate using the most comprehensive set of well-established global
climate models. Today’s findings conclude that it is “unequivocal” that the
Earth’s climate is warming; that current atmospheric concentration of CO2
far exceeds the natural range of the last 650,000 years; and that it is
“very likely” (>90%) that human heat-trapping emissions are the cause.
It was a few months ago that I read about the inauguration of the first internet cafe for the blind in Islamabad. I had wanted to write about it earlier but somehow skipped my mind, until the recent discussion on Islamabad allowed me to jog my memory a bit. I do want to share the news, even if a bit belatedly, because it is so uplifting and empowering.
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Posted by Bilal Zuberi
This is just a tool, so you still need to approach donors yourselves. You will still need to make a good proposal, find possible donors and ask them for money. This tool just helps you to cash in.
A 
I have been away for a long while. In 15 days I visited more than 15 cities in 3 continents….It was exhausting. But the most exciting part of it was to be in China just before the 
