The officials of Lok Virsa and Pakistan Monument on a rainy Friday gave a warm welcome to a Swati girl, Malala Yousufzai, when she arrived to visit the museums located at Shakarparian hills.
The child prodigy, Yousufzai, now 13, rose to fame for recognition of her services for the promotion of education among girls in Swat, when Taliban forces continued to blow educational institutions in the war-ridden area, particularly, girls’ schools.
Yousufzai, who championed the cause of the people of her region and voiced their afflictions and side by side, the atrocities of the Taliban during their suffocating regime by writing a diary for the BBC under a pseudonym, was nominated for the prestigious International Children Peace Award. Thus she becomes the first-ever Pakistani girl to be nominated for the award.
On her arrival to Heritage Museum of Lok Virsa, Yousufzai was received by the senior officials of Lok Virsa and briefed about the salient features of the tangible and intangible heritage with special reference to the functioning of Lok Virsa as a specialised national institution charged with the mandate for collection, documentation, preservation and dissemination of Pakistan’s cultural heritage.
She was taken around various creative displays at the first ethnological museum of Pakistan, popularly known as Heritage Museum, portraying living folk culture and lifestyles of the people representing each and every corner of the country, including the remotest parts. She took keen interest in the museum displays, specially the wooden carved doors and pillars collected from the beautiful Swat Valley.
In her remarks, Malala Yousufzai appreciated the contribution of Lok Virsa in promoting and preserving the rich cultural heritage of Pakistan in a magnificent way. She was presented a set of Lok Virsa audio-visual productions and books on behalf of Lok Virsa Executive Director Khalid Javaid as token of her visit to Lok Virsa.
Later, Yousufzai also visited Pakistan Monument Museum which is dedicated to those who sacrificed their today for a better tomorrow. The museum depicts history, struggle for freedom, emergence and development of Pakistan through three-dimensional dioramic displays.
She also took keen interest in various galleries of the museum that presents key achievements of the country after independence, particularly in the field of culture, tourism, education, defence, communication, science and technology, sports, industries, women development and other important and diverse sectors of national life. She was very pleased to see glimpses of meritorious services rendered by the founder of Pakistan, Qauid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, national poet and philosopher Allama Iqbal and a number of other national heroes and freedom fighters.
