Karachi

Karachi

Pakistan
Pakistan
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Overcoming Ethnic and Religious Tensions

Three teams used civic engagement and film to work with Karachi’s diverse communities to tackle the city’s hate, extremism and polarisation challenges.

Young Cities launched in Karachi in 2022. As part of our inaugural two-year, hybrid programme in Pakistan, 15 young people built their capacities and launched diverse initiatives to address youth political apathy, lack of awareness of civic rights and ethnic and religious discrimination. Karachi is one of the biggest cities of Pakistan and acts as a culturally diverse, economic hub of the country. With this diversity, minorities are especially at risk in the city, where extremist narratives interact with prevalent cultural norms to produce more intense violence aimed at women, the Trans community, and cities’ religious minorities. Unfortunately, it is also a hub for extremist and hate groups. Despite these challenges, Karachi offers a wealth of opportunities, as the the capital of Sindh province that is also recognised as a “trend setter” city in terms of youth and pop culture, and one of the centers of Pakistan’s burgeoning youth-driven, tech-savvy start-up scene. And their young citizens are self-driven, motivated agents of progress when given the right support.

Karachi Projects

Through mentorship, seed-funding and network-building, we support young people to transform ideas into tangible initiatives that make a positive change in their communities.

Speak Karachi
project

Speak Karachi

Pakistan
Pakistan | Karachi

Addressing the barriers and apathy among youth to engage in local politics in Pakistan and specifically in Karachi, a city with a complicated history of division and politics.

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Mehrdar Art & Production
project

Mehrdar Art & Production

Pakistan
Pakistan | Karachi

Talented young creatives from Lyari, Karachi harnessing the power of film to change negative perceptions of their community.

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Bagh-e-Sakina
project

Bagh-e-Sakina

Pakistan
Pakistan | Karachi

Strengthening civic engagement and awareness among Karachi's young students through an innovative capacity-building programme.

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Our partners

The organisations and municipal governments we work with are essential to the success of the Young Cities programme. Together, we continue to effect genuine, relevant change in the communities in which we work.

HIVE Pakistan

HIVE’s experience, networks and expertise have proved time and again invaluable to impactful project delivery. While they are headquartered in Islamabad, they have extensive ties to Lahore and Karachi, where their staff are traveling often for the implementation of our capacity-building and civic education related to P/CVE.

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Get In Touch

If you would like to find out more about our impact, or would like to discuss future opportunities, we would love to hear from you.

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