Bridging the US-Pakistan gap

The relationship between the US and Pakistan might have a long history of controversies, but equally long is the struggle of individuals and organisations to bridge gaps between the two allies and strengthen ties through people-to-people contacts.
Some people, on either side, believe that despite the two countries’ bilateral relations, the common citizens of both allies know little about each other’s country.
To bridge the gap and bring people belonging to different fields from both countries together, a US-based organisation; the Convergence, has recently started different programmes in education, agriculture, media and culture, business and entrepreneurship and other fields.  
Convergence is a non-profit, non-partisan organization, dedicated to bringing dialogue where there is division, consensus where there is conflict, and solutions where there is stalemate on issues of national consequence.
To find more possible ways to strengthen the people-to-people contacts, Convergence Vice President Aakif K Ahmed is in the Pakistan for last few days and meeting with people from different fields of life.
In an exclusive interview with Pakistan Today, Ahmed said that for the past four years, his organisation has been engaged in efforts that have brought Americans and Pakistanis from all walks of society to discuss common challenges.
“These efforts have produced substantial results, including a joint initiative by Pakistanis and Americans to expand technology and skills transfer in agriculture and new online educational exchange programmes,” he added.
“In the next 30 years, the US will be fifth biggest country and Pakistan will be sixth and both have a long history of bilateral relations, which were very strong until three decades ago, but for different reasons they have weakened. So we have to bridge that gap and bring the people of both countries closer so that they can understand each other’s country.”
The idea behind these efforts is that by focusing on citizen engagement, the US can invest in areas that can lead to positive transformations in Pakistan and its relationship with America.
“There are many things alike among the citizens of both countries that are hidden from each other and by all these initiatives, we want to let the Americans and Pakistani to understand each other,” said Ahmed.
He further added that due to the lack of the communication between Americans and Pakistanis, they are not aware of all the “good things”, which both are doing on their end. So by all these initiatives that his organisation is taking, the people of both countries will understand about each other.
Disclosing details of different programmes, he said that under the initiatives in the educational sector, around 10 Pakistani schools are selected and each of them has a sister school in the US under which the students of both schools will communicate on different subjects and will dispel the negative propaganda made against each others.
“We got a very positive response in the US and teachers want their students to know about global issues, as American students have limited knowledge about the world,” he said.
He said similar initiatives are being taken in other sectors i.e. the business community and farmers will meet each other and share information about their fields.
Convergence is also trying to bring media houses of both countries closer, so that they can exchange information.