Pakistan

City:Islamabad

Year of Establishment: 2002

Amount of Members: 120 members

Meetings: 4 meetings

Contact: Ms.Gulmina Bilal, Project Coordinator, FNSt Pakistan



Description:

Individuals Acting for Freedom Pakistani IAF Alumni:

Alumni Meeting Pakistan

The Pakistani Alumni network of the International Academy of Leadership held its first meeting in December 2002. There are more than hundred Alumni of the Academy in Pakistan but before 2002 they did not get a chance to interact with each other nor share ideas. The members of the Alumni have all been at the Academy on different liberal courses and at various times. Therefore, the annual Alumni meeting was organized for the first time in 2002 to give the Pakistani Alumni a chance to exchange experiences and work together. This practice has continued and the fourth Alumni meeting was organized on November 10th 2005 at Islamabad. The year 2005 also marked ten years of partnership between Pakistani liberals and the IAF Academy as the first Pakistani to go to the IAF Academy was in 1995. Thus, in keeping with this momentous occasion the theme for the 4th IAF Alumni meeting was ``1995-2005:Ten years of working together for freedom” and it was attended by a number of Alumni but also by the Director of the IAF Academy, Mr. Joerg Dehnert who had especially come to attend this meeting.

The IAF perhaps can be referred to as the market of ideas and activists as every month it hosts freedom activists from all over the project offices of the Foundation who are brimming with ideas and thirsty for training in making these ideas to reality. What is significant to note is that this fraternity of ideas also matures into a network between the participants even after the seminar. This network sustained through the internet has proved to be a vibrant forum for discussing ideas and strategies from the respective countries. Communication and networking being important tools of the 21st century, the Pakistani Alumni on coming back home not only keep in touch with their fellow international participants but also serve within the country as a vibrant liberal network of ideas and resources. The Annual IAF meeting organized by the Pakistan office of the Foundation since 2002 also serves to cement the bonds that tie all graduates of the International Academy.

Till September 2005, Pakistanis and the IAF staff thought that this network was useful for ideas generation and discussion but the tragic October 8th earth quake which hit Pakistan brought to light another fact: the IAF Academy Alumni network is also an international network of friends and family.

1995-2005: Ten years of working together for freedom

The Pakistan office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, the office of the Director of the International Academy of Leadership and even the personal e-mail boxes of the participants were flooded with e-mails from concerned participants anxious to know about the Pakistani Alumni families, expressing their sympathies and having only question: what can they do to aid their fellow Alumni members? This overwhelming show of sympathy showed that liberals all over the world were bond into not only e-networks but also networks of shared hopes, goals and friendships. In other words, as in the words of the IAF Director, Mr. Joerg Denhert it shows, ``that the network works.” Eager to assist their members, the IAF Academy organized a relief collection drive and sent huge aid consignments to Pakistan.Ofcourse, this was in the words of the IAF Director,``a few drops on a hot stone” but it essentially epitomized the spirit behind the ten year relationship between the IAF Academy of the Foundation and the Pakistanis who have contributed to the seminars of the Academy and have also gained in return from the IAF global experience.

The Pakistani IAF Alumni have documented proceedings of each of the Alumni meeting and on the occasion of 10 years of Pakistani liberals and IAF working together also issued a publication titled "Keeping the flame of freedom burning: 10 years journey”