Opening Ceremony: "Promoting Local Narratives of Tolerance and Inclusion in Punjab" (English & Urdu)

Bilingual (English & Urdu) video of the virtual Opening Ceremony (held on February 8, 2022) for our innovative new two-year initiative in Pakistan, "Promoting Local Narratives of Tolerance and Inclusion in Punjab" -- a joint effort by the Asian Cultural History Program of the Smithsonian Institution, the Pakistani nonprofit Interactive Resource Center (IRC) and its associated web-TV station Maati TV, along with the U.S. non-profit arts group Company E. All the partners in this project introduce themselves and summarize their respective roles -- Mohammad Waseem for the Interactive Resource Center (IRC, based in Lahore), Tara Compton for the Washington DC-based Company E, and Dr. Paul Michael Taylor for the Smithsonian. They describe the virtual workshops, as well as the in-person film-making, ethnographic film training, and the "diversity tours" that our new initiative will be carrying out in Central and South Punjab, Pakistan. We announce our upcoming first virtual workshops (Feb. 26-27), which will help Pakistani participants learn how to film and record the many forms of "local narratives" about tolerance and inclusion in Central and South Punjab. Participants throughout Pakistan are invited to sign up for this and future activities of this project via the websites indicated in this video.