Source: Daily Times
A US company, persuaded by an American woman who visited Pakistan and was moved by the keenness of the girls she met to obtain an education, is donating educational toys and aides to a girls’ madrassa in Lahore.
In September 2007, Ann EW Stone, a political consultant from Alexandria, Virginia, visited several cities in Pakistan under a State Department programme that focused on the involvement of women in the political process. While in Pakistan, she visited a girls’ madrassa in Lahore and was moved by her meetings with the madrassa’s director and with her young students. On return to the US, she got in touch with Action Products International, on whose board she sits, an educational toy company in Orlando, Florida.
The company designs, manufactures and markets educational toy products. She urged the company to donate some of its products to the madrassa in Lahore and several other orphanages in Karachi. The company responded with an offer of 50 boxes of toys for Pakistani children.
The Department of State’s Bureau of International Information Programmes has offered to get the items shipped to Pakistan while the American consulates in Lahore and Karachi have agreed to receive the shipments and coordinate their distribution. Stone and her friends are hoping that further donations of similar items can be made to children in developing nations by the toy industry.
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Omair Haroon // Feb 29, 2008 at 11:16 am
I wonder these wouldn’t be any anti-islam toys. We just can’t be going this way, not anymore.
2 Pakistani // Mar 3, 2008 at 3:02 am
This jesture shows that not all americans are cruel infact majority of the american public are peace loving and generous people…
3 muhammad // Mar 5, 2008 at 5:13 am
It also shows the pathetic hypocrisy of Americans. Just look at this.
The madrassas represent the biggest act of systametic charity in Pakistan. In terms of its beneficiaries and the money involved, the madrass is Pakistan’s largest NGO, by far.
For the last five years, the American have used every conceivable tactic to destroy this network… doing everything from stangling their financial support to creating public disdain for them and societal tensions which ultimately weaken the madrassas. Above all, they are putting pressure on Pakistani government to shut down as many madrassas as possible.
And, now, to cover up all of this tragic history, some American donates toys to a madrassa and make a news item out of it…
Just how much more superficial could you get… do they think we are really so dumb that we can see through these cosmetic gestures…
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