Rana Gulzar AMAL Pakistan youthaction786@yahoo.com

Rana Gulzar is working as Project Manager with Amal. He is training peer educators, community/social activists and youth from public and social sectors on health education, human rights and health issues. He has the work experience in the 70 districts of Pakistan with approximately 1300 NGOs/CBOs on capacity building and health education. He has received award from the Goi Peace Foundation Tokyo, Japan and The World Peace Prayer Society in 2003 and has also been selected for International Youth Parliament 2004 (IYP 2004). EDC (Health & Human Development Programs) USA has made a documentary on his life history and work, “How Can Youth Work to Stop AIDS around the World” in 2003. EDC showed this documentary to 2500 delegates in Youth Employment Summit 2003, India.

What are the main areas of your interest?
Main areas of my interest are to work on youth issues particularly issues of high-risk youth/street children in Pakistan on Life skills based education, HIV prevention and role of ICT in problem solving.

What are the main activities of the organisation you are associated with?
YES! (Youth Empowerment Skills!) is a community based Life Skills, ICT and Adolescents Rights Awareness Programme. The Pakistani youth, specifically those belonging to the poorer strata of society, are vulnerable to sexual exploitation. These adolescents have little or no knowledge of matters related to reproductive health such as puberty, virginity, menstruation, masturbation and family planning, STIs and human rights. It is important that they are made aware of a variety of reproductive health and human rights issues.

Quetta City, the heart of Balochistan, Pakistan, is the largest market of automobile spare parts and carpet weaving industry in the province. It is densely populated. Socio-economic status of the people of the locality is generally very low. A lot of young people of the city are employed as child labour or are involved in petty crimes. Most of these young people are illiterate Afghan refugees. Availability of cheap labour and the low rents attract legal and illegal businesses to this location.

AMAL Human Development Network Balochistan is piloting a youth oriented project in the area of Quetta city. The target population for YES! is out of school male and female adolescents aged between 10-17 years. The majority of labour force working in these shops, workshops and carpet weaving industry are these young children. Majority of them are paid Rs 5-10 (less than $ 1) per day for their apprenticeships and labour. Most of them are migrant children. They are also vulnerable to physical/sexual abuse.

Under the YES! Project, AMAL provides a series of result oriented activities like child rights, ICT and legal aid, HIV/AIDS awareness and sensitisation, rights base training, life skills training, non-formal education/vocational training, assertiveness, self-protection, peer education, training of trainers, monthly social and cultural activities, and development of community organisation.

These interventions are designed on the basis of a situational analysis and needs assessment of the area.

Which focus of your organizational activities seemto be most interesting and purposeful to you?
AMAL Human Development Network is a non-profit organisation registered under the Societies Registration Act 1860 (registration No. RS\ICT\273), established in 1994.

AMAL’s expertise lies in providing technical and capacity building support to NGOs/CBOs, project management assistance and communication and material development.

The mission of AMAL is to empower individuals, communities and youth organisations through provision of information and skills promoting gender/rights based approach to the social sectors throughout Pakistan. Gender responsive AMAL’s interventions cover Community mobilisation support, development management trainings, project management, micro finance/enterprise development, reproductive health/HIV/AIDS, primary education (including non formal education) and rights based approach to programming (RBAP).

AMAL is a member of various bilateral and multilateral networks including UNAIDS, UNICEF, Youth Net Family Health International (FHI), CORIN, Population Association of Pakistan (PAP), Catholic Relief Services (CRS) NGOs network, Human Resource Development (HRD), Pakistan Reproductive Health Network, National Trust for Population Welfare (NATPOW), Greenstar Social Marketing, Asia Pacific Network of Sex workers (APNSW).

AMAL enjoys a network of over 1300 CBOs/NGOs throughout Pakistan. They offer AMAL sectoral and population specific expertise. In the area of HIV/AIDS, we work closely with our provincial partners in high-risk group programmes e.g truck driver, drug user, Commercial Sex worker (CSW), men who have sex with other men (MSM) and Youth.

It has received registered work status from Government of Pakistan Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas and States and Frontier Regions Division (SAFFRON). AMAL director serves as NGO Board member Asia Pacific at UNAIDS Geneva (2002-2005).

AMAL has been selected as NGO representative for Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) for Global Fund against TB, Malaria, and AIDS.

AMAL has been nominated to present Government of Pakistan (draft) youth policy paper at Manchester “Have we got it right” sponsored by British Council in 2003.

AMAL team includes pool of trainers on rights based programming approach, gender/diversity, reproductive health/HIV/AIDS, project management, community development and sustainable human development, etc. This pool is trained by UNICEF and other international organisations. It retains key facilitators with over 50,000 combined training room hours and maintains a database of specialists and professional consultants. It also provides expert, bilingual research and administrative support.

What are the key factors behind your recent success?
From my level of commitment I believe that youth participation philosophy should be followed at every stage.. I strongly believe that nothing is impossible in the world and youth can make everything possible.

Which activities, do you think to be prioritized more for the development of the society, especially of the youth?
Time has passed when leaders/elders talk about youth problems and solutions. It’s a time to talk with the youth directly and involve youth in decision making at all stages otherwise it will not work. So there is need to prioritise youth participation inall actions, planning and implementation, etc.

What do you think about the prospect of ICT in the development of youth?
ICT is key to success but still majority of youth population of third world have no access to ICT. Govts of third world particularly India and Pakistan spend money on ICT like initiatives instead of weapon of mass destruction.

What is your message to our young generation to assure a better future?
Youth should unite for positive change in the world because ”youth is not problem, youth is solution”.