A series of three webinars hosted by Syed Talat Hussain

The webinars were organized around the core theme of making people, budgets and grassroots issues the center of public and policy debate. Special flaps were created and webinars were duly publicized on social media platforms. This generated tremendous interest and feedback. Again this created a new niche in social media work because most of these webinars are either theoretical discussions or too divorced from serious issues. These webinars used CERAG data and integrated them into discussions on digital media.

The first webinar was titled: budget, awam aur shafafiyat. It discussed national and KP budgets. The panelists included Mr. Shahbaz Rana, Express News and Mr. Izharullah, Independent Urdu. Ms. Rashida Dohad presented the Foundation’s budget analysis and findings. The importance of citizen engagement with public finances and the government.

The second webinar was on Pakistan ko theek kaisay krain (how to fix Pakistan). It presented social accountability experiences. The panellists included Ms. Rashida Dohad of the Foundation, Ms. Saira Iftikhar, former MPA, Punjab Assembly (PML-N), Senator Rubina Khalid (PPP) and Mr. Hamza Shafqaat, DC-Islamabad.

The third webinar on awam ki aawaz kaisay sunay (how to project people’s voices). The role of the media in projecting people’s voices and stories was the focus of this webinar. Its panelists included Mr. Jamal Shah, and actor & director, Ms. Nazia Malik, actor and anchor and Mr. Saaji Gul, a screen writer. Ms. Rashida Dohad of the Foundation also one of the panelists. She discussed the stories generated by Cerag and suggested stronger links between CSOs and the media so that these may reach a wider audience. The artists agreed that closer links are needed as CSOs have access to many stories and the media has the skills to tell them. The need for corporate support for such stories was also discussed.