A UAE-based entrepreneur has planned a South Asian travelling festival to facilitate constructive dialogue among the people of the region.
Tanya Daud has planned the travelling festival after launching an initiative called "Baat Karein" to facilitate dialogue between common people of India and Pakistan.
The travelling plan 'South Asian Sandooq' will start off as curated evenings, which will eventually be built up as a travelling festival, Daud told PTI.
The idea is to create a space where actual constructive dialogue takes shape.
"A lot of positive things are happening in both India and Pakistan not just in the fields of art and culture but even other things that people aren't aware of such as in the fields of music, sports, science and technology, social work education etc. Basically I want to focus on positive things all over the region," Daud said.
It is not just about India and Pakistan, "We know so little about Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, for example," she said.
Daud said this can become a platform where people talk on issues but before that awareness has to be created at a mass level.
"We have these festivals and if we succeed in turning them into travelling festivals, we can build a truly solid platform," Daud said, adding that this concept can be replicated into other community-centric projects as well.
"I want to use a wide variety of mediums in whatever capacity we can to build a culture of dialogue and awareness," she said. Daud said there is an immediate need to get rid of the stereotypes that exists on both sides.
