Last Monday I read a news story in the New York Times that I have not been able to stop thinking about. The story is called, “Young Pakistanis Take One Problem Into Their Own Hands,” and it is about a wonderful group of young people in Lahore, Pakistan who gather every Sunday to pick up trash in their city’s public places. The trash-pickers were organized by a group of teens and young twenty-something’s that are frustrated by the prevailing sentiment that all is lost. These youngsters refuse to believe that all is lost, and they are starting to set a new tone by showing that one visible problem that bothers everyone, TRASH, can be taken care of by a small collective movement. This they hope will help show people that other problems can too be solved with collective action.
These young people are defying a suffocating sentiment in Pakistan, and despite huge obstacles, they are changing the way people think and behave. And they couldn’t be doing it at a more important time. For the past few years, news of increasing violence and Taliban insurgencies have been discoloring poor Pakistan. Then, 2 weeks ago, Swat Valley was evacuated, leaving so many without homes, missing family, and desperately vulnerable to violence, illness, and poverty. Yesterday, a suicide bomb rocked Lahore, a city that has remained proudly seperate from the violence sweeping through the border and tribal regions, and also the city where the trash collecting young people hail from. And, today, news reached the world of another bomb shaking up Pakistan, this one in Peshawar. Pakistan really needs a ray of hope to remind them of the potential power they have as a people to restore peace, and these young trash collectors are starting the movement…My heart is with them and I know your’s is too!!! Join their Facebook group here and start helping spread the word, spread the movement.
Tags: Enchanting Challenge, hope, Pakistan, picking up trash, Responsible Citizens, Young Pakistanis
