- Campaigners motivating people towards freedom of speech, free political franchise
ISLAMABAD: Unlike the conventional political campaigns, where the focus remains on winning support of voters for a particular political party, hundreds of youth in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi are seen busy in campaigning “vote freely,” motivating commutes on various crossroads and roundabouts to vote out of their own will without any duress.
As the election campaign by different political parties was gaining momentum gradually, it was a unique activity not to persuade people vote for any political party but motivate them to vote with their objective will without any prejudice and pressure.
“Speak Freely and Vote Freely” campaign was aimed at encouraging people to ignore all barriers and speak what they want and exercise their right to vote freely during the upcoming elections, scheduled on July 25. Dressed in yellow shirts and yellow caps, the youth are deployed at various roundabouts, with banners and placards in their hands, with various slogans to motivate people towards freedom of speech and free political franchise.
The volunteer youth were standing at 9th Avenue Chowk, F-10, Faisal Avenue-Blue Area intersection, Aabpara Chowk, Melody Chowk, Kashmir Highway, 7th Avenue Chowk, 6th Road in Rawalpindi, Committee Chowk, Bani Chowk, Kuchari Chowk and various other crossroads.
The awareness campaign was arranged by Langtech, a language institute based in Islamabad, with the help of volunteers, aiming at creating awareness as well as motivating youth to participate in such campaigns for the socio-political development of the country.
“The main idea of this campaign was to give a clear message to the people to speak freely and vote freely,” said Tayyab H Malik, managing director of the institute, who had designed this campaign. He said that people should speak freely and convey to others what they want but at the same time, they must respect others’ opinion to build a tolerant society where mutual respect becomes a duty.
“The campaign has been designed keeping in view the reality that the elections are around the corner and it could change the destination of Pakistan as youth have been playing pivotal role in it.” He said that unlike professional advertisers and campaigners, new and fresh volunteers were utilised for the campaign. They were provide initial training and then sent to different field locations to carry out the task.
Shafqat Mehmood, who was spearheading the campaign, said that the people who participated in the campaign, not only spread the awareness message across the twin cities, but themselves learned many things and executed them in the field. Despite the scorching heat, they continued their drive for the noble cause of helping people to exercise their free will, he said.
“We have learned a lot of things through this campaign as we came out of classrooms and executed a comprehensive marketing campaign for spreading a positive message among the people,” said one of the volunteers of the campaign.