International Political Forum



Special Features

April 15, 2013
1 comment »

Changemaker of the Week: Ghalib Khalil, Pakistan

When devastating floods caused a surging crisis in Pakistan in 2010, Ghalib Khalil, then 15, felt impelled to help somehow.

Knowing the limited impact he could have as just one student, Ghalib sought advice from his teacher, who suggested that he organise a platform for volunteers and those wishing to donate. Carrying this advice with him, Ghalib created an organisation called Rescue Pakistan Youth Foundation. Using Facebook to voice his new venture; he set about mobilizing his friend’s networks to let others know about his idea and gain the crucial support he needed.

After gaining the support of hundreds of fellow Pakistani volunteers, Ghalib’s volunteers carried out door to door collections. At the same time, Ghalib contacted international companies and asked them to donate money through his organisation. Rescue Pakistan Youth Foundation, appearing to be one of the first to mobilize action in helping those affected by the floods, secured the agreement of most of the international companies.

Wanting to gain an even bigger impact, Ghalib set up meetings with other local NGOs to gain strength through unity. In the immediate aftermath of the floods, Ghalib’s innovative use of social media and engagement with other passionate individuals led him and his team to raise a huge sum of money in order to assist the grieving Pakistani community. Even now, Rescue Pakistan Youth Foundation continues to work on local community projects.

rescue

Ghalib Khalil now also promotes Friends Without Borders, a project that has launched a campaign of peace-building between Israel and Palestine, India and Pakistan, Greece and Turkey, Kosovo and Serbia. The project aims to bring mutual respect, trust and understanding between 14-25 year olds through the immediate power of information, communication technologies and video story telling. Ghalib’s friendship with Arveena Singh, and their aim to promote young friendships between India and Pakistan can be found on Friends without border’s Facebook page.



About the Author

Jessica Trevis
Jessica Trevis is a recent graduate from the University of Manchester where she studied History and Sociology with a specialization in China. She has also studied at the University of Hong Kong and for the last two years has studied Mandarin Chinese, as well as writing a dissertation on Uighur and Tibetan nationalism. With a keen interest in human rights and the third sector she is now an intern at Amnesty International in London. She loves travelling and the enmeshing of different cultures. Her main areas of interest are Asia/Middle Eastern politics with a strong interest in intervention, ethnic minority and refugee issues.
More articles by »


1 comment »

 

About Continuum

 

This is a custom sidebar. Continuum gives you lots of custom sidebar possibilities. You can use the Continuum Theme Options page to specify which pages have a unique sidebar. Or, you can use the same sidebar for all of your pages using the Sidebar Default widget panel. If you do specify that you want a unique sidebar for an area of your site, such as the Search page, you can use the corresponding built-in Sidebar Search widget panel.

In fact, Continuum comes standard with 19 unique sidebars. Wow, we're starting to sound like a car commercial, so we'll add that you don't have to use all of them if you don't want. Continuum harnesses the power of absolute customization while at the same time having a quality of meekness: you can forget about all the settings and get yourself up and running in no time flat.


One Comment

Leave a comment »

  1. Rabia

    Beautiful story. He is an inspiration. God bless him and protect him always. Ameen.

    Reply
    September 20, 2013 at 4:45 pm



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *