Balti Community celebrates ‘Jashn-e-Mayfung’ in Skardu

Bazm e Elm wa Fun (BEF), a community-based organization working for the development and promotion of the Balti language organized a cultural event named ‘Jashn e Mayfung’ in Skardu city of Gilgit Baltistan. The festival comprised a variety of events involving many literary people including writers, poets, students, and researchers from the community. Poets of Balti language presented their work while traditional food was also put on display during the event.

The purpose of the event was to engage the literary people in the community in a language development activity and encourage them to work for strengthening their language and culture.

This event was based on the idea of Balti community members who thought the activity was needed to reactivate the literary fold within the community. FLI has been asking its target communities to come up with their own ideas of small but impactful activities in addition to those we plan and execute together with community researchers. Given that these events are proposed by the communities themselves, FLI attaches with them great importance. So far, we have supported 16 such events from 11 language communities from the northern Pakistan during last two years. We commit to continue the support and appreciate those communities who have plans to strengthen their languages and cultures through such events. We hope more communities will approach us with new ideas.