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VOICE OF R
A BAGFUL OF LIGHT
Education is definitely a vaccine for violence, terrorism, and poverty. Very painfully, I write here that Pakistan is one of the countries plagued by issues such as poverty, corruption, and—biggest of all, and the one that bothers me most— illiteracy. According to data available from UNESCO in 2017, the overall literacy rate of Pakistan for individuals 15 years and older is 59.13%, which positions it in the lower ranks of the list of countries according to their literacy rates. There are a number of factors that contribute to the lack of literacy in Pakistan, one of the biggest being the 24 million or so children that have never been to school. In this situation, there are people who want to overcome the illiteracy issue in Pakistan; one of these social warriors, Rohayl Varind, won the World Summit Youth Award in Sao Paulo, Brazil for his project Voice of R (VOR) in 2014.
According to the Youth Award, Voice of R is an online forum created primarily for Pakistani youth in times where ethnic prejudice, misogyny, poverty, and corruption threaten the democratic foundations of society, according to VOR’s founder, 25.5% of males and 57.5% of females in Pakistan suffer from depression due, as the producer suggests, to prevailing fundamentalist thinking of all kinds. VOR is designed to challenge acceptance of the status quo. The VOR platform engages Pakistanis to bring awareness to young people and to motivate them to take charge of their lives and develop activism for positive social change. A primary focus is the development of online discussions promoting freedom of expression and focusing on human rights. Citizens across the country can connect across the barriers of socio-economic class, religion, and ethnicity. Participants write thought-provoking articles on current issues such as genocide, rape, or honor killings. VOR also takes pride in showcasing Pakistani talent, interviewing artists as an important strategy in confidence-building. Other activities include the organization of social events and a venture into print publishing and news making.