Federal Minister for National Heritage and Integration Samina Khalid Ghurki paid a formal visit to Lok Virsa (National Institute of Folk & Traditional Heritage), an autonomous body of her ministry, on Friday.
This was her first visit to Lok Virsa after assuming the portfolio of the National Heritage Ministry. On arrival, she was given a warm welcome by Executive Director Khalid Javaid and other senior officials of the institute. The minister was taken around various three-dimensional creative dioramas at the first state museum of ethnology, popularly known as Lok Virsa Heritage Museum, depicting living cultural traditions and lifestyles of the people of Pakistan, including those living in remote regions.
The minister took keen interest in the hall of antiquity and continuity, hall of ballads and romances, thematic display on textile presenting the mastery of women artisans, hall of architecture portraying more than 32 dying traditional architectural skills such as mirror work, marble intarsia, fresco work, tile mosaic and blue tiles. Addressing the meeting of Lok Virsa officers, the minister, who is also chairperson of Lok Virsa board of governors, highly appreciated the efforts of Lok Virsa in documenting and preserving the cultural heritage of Pakistan in such a beautiful and professional manner.
She assured full cooperation and facilitating role from her ministry in successful holding of activities and programmes of Lok Virsa. “The purpose of my visit today is to express that we proudly own you (Lok Virsa employees) and would like to work with you as a team for betterment of our magnificent cultural heritage,” the minister maintained.
While talking to media people, the national heritage minister said, “Though a lot of work has already been done for the preservation of Pakistan’s culture, but in my view, we need to have a more cohesive approach to ensure fruitful interaction with youth so that the younger generation should get acquainted with the traditional values inherited by us through our forefathers. For this, we would encourage students to interact with Lok Virsa’s valuable assets such as heritage museum and heritage library. In order to fight extremism, we need to devise an alternate engagement strategy for promoting our soft image of the country to the world through culture.”
Later, a detailed multi-media presentation on Lok Virsa’s administrative structure, legal status, functioning and activities was given to the minister by the Lok Virsa ED. The minister was informed that Lok Virsa was currently holding a folk festival in Sialkot at Garrison Park, which was opened on November 16 by Federal Information Minister Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan. The other two programmes that Lok Virsa was going to hold in November included a conference on Sufism as mainspring of peace, love and harmony (23 November) and launching ceremony of the book on “Forgotten Faces in the Traditional Folk Theatre,” focusing on women artists, by Dr Fauzia Saeed (24 November).
