Born and raised in Lahore, Sabrina Dawood‘s interest in education and environmental causes has brought her to the helm of the Dawood Foundation which is as CEO, Ms Dawood has led the foundation as it embarked on a series of documentaries on the National Parks of Pakistan. Dawn sat down with Ms Dawood to discuss her passion for environmentalism and nature documentaries.

Q. How does a lawyer end up making nature documentaries?

A. After a brief stint in law, I joined the family business, working mainly on corporate social responsibility (CSR). I then began to manage the Dawood Public School, a trust school for girls.

Over the years, I have grown quite passionate about education and promoting it in whatever way I can. I am a tree hugger at heart and the garbage that lines the streets of Karachi bothers me no end.

The love for education, I suppose, is something my father inculcated in me and all my siblings are ardent environmentalists, so really, this nature documentary series is an amalgamation of all our interests.

Q. What are the main areas the foundation is working in?

A. The foundation is one of the oldest charitable trusts in Pakistan, and is the charitable arm of the Dawood Hercules Group. The core focus of the foundation has been education.

Last year, we decided to experiment by taking on a project that was more content-based. The thought behind it was to create knowledge that could then be available to all institutions and public for the benefit of all. We are charting out various avenues through which the documentaries can reach as many people as possible.

So far, the nature series has documented the Chitral Gol National Park and the Margalla Hills National Park. The documentaries are available for download from our website www.dawoodfoundation.org in English, Urdu, Punjabi, Sindh and Pashto.

Two ‘mobile cinemas’ are traversing Pakistan and are screening the documentaries in 130 cities and towns.

We have partnered with the Sindh government education departmet to screen the documentaries in 100 government schools in Karachi. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has also supported our cause and are screening them in ‘green’ schools associated with them. We plan to contact as many educational institutions as possible for.

Q. What prompted your interest in environmental issues?

A. The environment is one topic that the trustees felt was extremely important and needed to be highlighted. The significance of conservation is becoming more and more apparent as Pakistanis lives and livelihood suffer every year due to the natural disasters that have afflicted our country.

Pakistan’s ecosystem is extremely fragile. We can already see the effects of climate change, water shortage and are beginning to suffer from food shortages as well. Such devastations are a sign that we must respect our natural resources and realise the impact of our excessive exploitation; that we must develop a reciprocal relationship between nature and humans, which will guarantee the symbiotic sustainability of both.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2015

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