Diversity festival celebrated at Lok Virsa

ISLAMABAD: To celebrate the heterogeneous culture of the country, a two-day festival is being celebrated in the city.

The event, titled ‘Greatness in Diversity Festival’, seeks to promote diversity and shared heritage amongst the many cultures of Pakistan. It is being held at the National Institute of Folk and Traditional Heritage (Lok Virsa).

The show kicked off with a culture strategy and policy session at Zarsanga Hall of Lok Virsa. Executive Director, Lok Virsa Dr. Fouzia Saeed highlighted the diversity of Pakistan’s culture in her keynote speech.

She said that for the last two years, the current administration is reviving it's capacity and has been working to preserve, collect and disseminate culture in the purest form especially the folklore and folk music for the past three generations.

"We are proud to announce that this year we are going to celebrate our relation to the land and traditions of Pakistan in the form of the online database of digital archival records which mark a historical example of good relations between public and private institutions".

David Pomerade, a representative of Smithsonian USA, also delivered a lecture on creating database and search applications for Museum Archives. Later, Paul Taylor, representative of Smithsonian USA, presented a research copy on the Museum and Community.Moreover, Zubair Torwali of Institute for Education and Development presented on a research on the endangered dying traditions and Tina Sani also spoke about cultural take over and the reasons why traditions die.

Faqir Zulfiqar Ali and Akbar Khamaiso were also a part of the festival.

Autaq celebration will be held on April 6 at Zarsanga Hall in which more than 50 cultural organisations will participate in the event.