South Asian Peacemakers

While several other peace bloggers who are from Pakistan are either university students or young professionals, Sohail Balkhi is someone who has worked in several countries, before returning to his country to work for peace. He helps students and newcomers to the workforce prepare for interviews and so on via motivational videos in addition to featuring interesting vignettes about both Pakistani's majority Muslim community as well as minorities there. What I find heartwarming is his always positive outlook and his frankness in not editing out uncomfortable aspects of history, even while he maintains this state of mind. His viewpoints about social media and instructions for newcomers to Vlogging are especially good starting points for those interested in taking this up either as a hobby or full time, and my guess is that his ideas are likely to have helped and influenced several others who have taken to peace blogging.

Iman and Moazzam are young Pakistani siblings who look at videos of various aspects of life in India from across the border in Pakistan, and react to what they see. In addition, they feature historical locations in Pakistan that are always of interest, in a region that is thousands of years old. Seventy plus years of intense hostility between India and Pakistan have erased the memory of the two countries' shared history from the minds of the younger generations on both sides of the border. Iman and Moazzam are among a dedicated group of young peace activists who work to keep the memories of a shared history alive. Kudos to them!

The first peacemaker whom I would like to feature is a young gentleman whose name is Sameer K. His videos feature several interesting subjects focused upon life and culture in Karachi and in Sindh. Sameer Bhai is a Muslim, but he goes out of his way to seek friends from the Hindu minority in the area and show the world their way of life. Together with this, he brings movie reviews when he can (the recent tense situation between India and Pakistan has hurt the entertainment and sports industries on both sides) and there is always something interesting to look forward to in his posts. His channel is updated almost daily, and the recent features of Pakistan's tiny Hindu majority city of Mithi and of the Tharparkar area have been beautifully done. A must watch. Languages: urdu and SIndhi. Hindi speakers would understand everything that is spoken. Occasionally, he has Gujarati speaking guests.