Turkish teacher Doğan Yücel wrote about an end-of-year function organized by the PakTurk Schools in Lahore and the words of praise the Governor Punjab, who presided the function, uttered about the Turkish schools. Yücel also mentioned the schools inaugurated by the guests from Turkey.

Part Eleven:

The third annual night we, the Gulberg and Islampura PakTurk branches in Lahore, organized in 2007 was full of enthusiasm and glory no different than the previous years. The ceremony held at the Alhambra Cultural Centre was packed. With the attendance of parents, students, teachers, and distinguished guests from Pakistan and Turkey, our end-of-year function was a feast. The Chief Guest of that year’s annual night was the Governor of the Punjab province, Mr. Khalid Maqbool. The esteemed governor had returned from a week-long trip to Turkey, which he had attended on invitation of the PakTurk Schools, just a day or two before the function. Governor Maqbool, who presided our function soon after he returned from Turkey, talked about his trip and our schools in his speech. He expressed Pakistan’s need for institutions like PakTurk and said the number of these institutions should increase across the country.

The end-of-year function was a parade of thrilling short sketches and songs of friendship, besides distribution of awards to high-achieving students and teachers, and chronicling memories of the past year along with projections for the future.

Guests from Turkey inaugurated 10 schools

In addition, around 150 guests from Turkey were in the audience at our end-of-year function. Visiting Pakistan with the Kimse Yok Mu Aid and Solidarity Association, a delegation from these Turkish guests including businessmen, journalists and prominent professionals travelled to Azad Kashmir and NWFP (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) after our annual night function. There, they inaugurated total 10 schools – 6 of which were in Muzaffarabad, 2 were in Balakot and 2 were in Mansehra –built by the Kimse Yok Mu Aid and Solidarity Association in place of the earthquake-damaged ones. The Association also erected three tent cities in the earthquake zone and provided three-course meals daily to 8,000 earthquake survivors for 6 months. Kimse Yok Mu Aid and Solidarity Association provided 12 million USD in aid to the people in the earthquake-hit areas. Since there are other independent articles in PakTurk File about the humanitarian relief and assistance rendered by PakTurk educational institutions in response to the October 2005 earthquake, I do not dwell on it any more here.

To be continued…

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Part Ten: A movie-like marriage story leading from Turkey to Pakistan