The Adab Festival Pakistan has collaborated with the Bradford Literature Festival (BLF) and the British Council to spread and sustain the movement of literature festivals across Pakistan by supporting and engaging with women to create, organise and deliver literature festivals.
‘Producers of the Future: From Keighley to Karachi’ is a groundbreaking international collaboration between the BLF and the Adab Festival.
The Adab Festival and the BLF have created and developed a series of online events for the BLF’s winter strand, ‘Words in the Winter’. Both platforms launched these events at a news conference on Tuesday at a hotel in Karachi.
The project tackled the under-representation of South Asian women in the talent pipeline and positions of leadership in the British creative sector through a digital exchange and development programme, bringing together South Asian women from diverse communities in Bradford and across Pakistan.
The British Council’s Digital Collaboration Fund, which supports organisations in the UK and selected countries overseas to collaborate digitally on international projects, backed this project.Adab Festival Director Ameena Saiyid said at the news conference that ‘From Keighley to Karachi’ is of great benefit to Pakistani female talent in the creative sector.
She pointed out that women in the creative sector in Pakistan, particularly in the rural areas, face enormous challenges such as gender discrimination, segregation, exclusion from the public space, lack of mainstreaming, exposure and empowerment, and an insistence on male dependence.However, she said, despite women treading a painful course, with every small victory snatched, with great effort and courage, from the teeth of hardened male prejudices.
