KARACHI: An entire day was dedicated to discuss and appreciate the culture and history of Lyari on Saturday at the Beach Luxury Hotel. It was an event organised by the Karachi Youth Initiative and Women Development Foundation to talk about an area otherwise known more for its gun fights and gang warfare.

Students and activists gathered to discuss what needs to be done to continue gathering people for discussions about the area whose people continue to face multiple threats from within.

After a ceasefire was called over a month ago, rights activists and educated youth from the area have arranged a series of programmes so that the attention on the troubled neighbourhood and its people does not wane.

Highlighting the rich political and cultural history of the area, a stall was set up at the Aquarius Hall with decades-old pictures of Lyari. Spokesperson for the KYI Farhan Iqbal said they would organise similar programmes in the future as well, where people from different walks of life could gather and look for solutions together, rather than focusing on stereotypes about each other.

The first panel discussion was titled ‘A walk through Lyari’. A brief documentary, which was made by a group of students headed by a girl, Mahwish Baloch, was shown in the beginning. Panellists included former Dawn staffer Latif Baloch and writer Gul Hassan Kalmati among others. Gul Hassan Kalmati, who has extensively written about the old city areas, pointed out how despite positive contribution of Lyariites in the past, the area and its people are known more for the prevailing gang warfare and conflict.

The second part of the discussion was titled ‘Lyari: culture, identity and people’. The panellists included Imran Sakit, Saad Baloch, Umer Laasi, Perveen Naz, Yunus Advocate and Sohail Rahi. They mainly spoke about the multicultural diversity of Lyari and how it continued to show resilience despite political problems and conflicts presently engulfing the area. Speaking about languages, Mr Rahi, vice president of the Youth Café in Lyari, said the neighbourhood was the most diverse in terms of multiple languages, around 15, which are spoken in and around Lyari.

The third panel discussion revolved around the future of the area. Former senator Javed Jabbar said he had firm belief in Lyari youth who would change the way the area was viewed by outsiders. They were the only ones who could bring about a positive change, he added.