LAHORE: “I would like to tell the story of a little wide-eyed girl who grew up shy but quietly observed everyone around her and absorbed all of what was happening around. This is my own story,” says Jannat Ali, a transgender activist.

She was speaking at a TEDx talk at the a private school near Liberty on Sunday.

For Jannat, who was born a male, coming out as a woman was the biggest issue and she said she had the realization of the reaction she was going to get. “For transgender persons, the turning point in their life is when they come out because until that moment, they have been living double life which affects them mentally, physically and sexually. But I became financially and educationally secure.” Jannat is an MBA gold medalist, something that has made her community very proud of her.

The changemakers from different fields shared their stories and experiences at the TEDx talk. While Jannat spoke of her life as a transgender who devoted her life to dance as catharsis. She said that as one of the most educated transgenders in Pakistan she wanted to ‘break the cycle’ and stereotypes that people had associated with her community. She expressed hope that in future many others would find a skill or subject to excel in and change the image of transgenders.

Speaking of culture and society, Kamran Lashari, director general of the Walled City of Lahore Authority (WCLA), held the audience rapt as he spoke about the history of Lahore. He explained about the projects the authority had undertaken with collaboration of Unesco and the Aga Khan Trust.

In a slideshow presentation, he showed how the streets were before and how they had changed them around. “We had overhanging electricity wires, which are now underground, and we have been working on water and gas lines and sewerage. There is still a lot to do but at least we have managed to engage the residents of the area.”

Lashari said now the people had more pride in their old city and there was much more civic sense.

Nadia Naviwala, a Wilson Centre global fellow and an independent American writer and researcher based in Islamabad, painted a grim situation of education in Pakistan supported by some statistics. She said despite the doubling of the education budget (national) from $3.5bn to $8.6bn, the state of education remained unchanged. The number of kids in schools had stagnated and there were hardly any school buildings, she added.

“Less than half of third graders can read a sentence in Urdu,” she said, pointing out absence of teachers. She said out of 6,000 schools destroyed by various problems including terrorism and the earthquake only less than a third had been rebuilt.

“Forty percent of children go to English medium schools where they only learn to pick up the foreign language but cannot think creatively and independently in it.” “In the end children need to be taught in their own languages to be able to learn and express better, Nadia stressed.

Dr Noreen Zafar spoke about maternal mortality rates and other diseases faced by women who belonged to both underprivileged as well as affluent classes. The commonality she said was that the society was silent on women’s problems, leaving them at the hands of diseases.

Other speakers included Zohaib Kazi, the former general manager of Coke Studio, Yusra Amjad, poet and stand-up comedian and Usama Khilji, writer, activist from Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2017