The British High Commission will launch the ‘Celebrating Connections’ project on its website, Facebook and Twitter to strengthen bilateral ties between the two countries. From 30 January onwards, the British High Commission website will feature stories that celebrate the bilateral relations, penned by both well-known personalities as well as ordinary people.
According to a press release issued by the commission, the UK and Pakistan are deeply connected. It was felt that many people did not know about the connections in terms of people, trade, culture, education and development. The project will highlight fascinating stories about these strong links.
The sites will feature stories of people in the UK who have links with Pakistan and of the people in Pakistan who have links with the UK. The commission said it had been filming, blogging, photographing and interviewing people to bring forward interesting stories. Web competitions will also be held as a part of the campaign. A monthly ‘Ask the High Commissioner’ blog will also be launched to encourage audiences to send in questions directly to the British High Commissioner, Adam Thomson, through the Pakistani website, Facebook and Twitter pages. The commissioner will answer as many questions as possible through a video blog at the end of each month.
Speaking at the project launch, Thomson said: “There are so many good stories to be told. Nearly 1 million British citizens claim Pakistani heritage. There are 1.4 million journeys between Pakistan and the UK each year. Britain is open for business and we want to attract the brightest and best to study. The number of Pakistani students studying in the UK has increased year on year over the past few years.”
He added that over £1.9 billion worth of trade flows between the countries annually as the UK is the 3rd largest overseas investor in Pakistan and over 100 English companies are operating here. He also said London will host the Olympics and Paralympics Games of 2012 and UK wanted to encourage visitors to find out more about the Games. Commissioner Thomson said: “UK aid over the next four years will help get four million Pakistani children into school, recruit and train 90,000 new teachers and provide six million text book sets. Pakistan is set to become the UK’s largest aid programme by 2015 if sufficient progress is made by the Pakistani Government at both federal and provincial levels on reform and delivery of results.”
