SPO team under the umbrella of ‘Peace my Right Campaign’ and ‘Citizen First project’ organized a ‘Sufism and Peace Festival’ in Khairpur on 25th May 2016. The festival was organized at Arts Council Khairpur with the collaboration of the district government. Despite of the extreme weather conditions the event was attended by almost 2300 people including men, women, youth, religious minorities and people belonging to the excluded group. The chief guest of the event was Mr. Fayyaz Jatoi, Deputy Commissioner Khairpur.
The senior district officials from Larkana, Sukkur, Shikarpur & Khairpur districts, representing Social Welfare, Education and Health – PPHI attended the event. A number of stalls were arranged for the people to visit which included various books stalls, food stalls, free medical camp stalls and many more. The message of peace and Sufism was promoted through tablow performances by Indus Theater Group and through the speeches of the speakers present at the festival. The speakers including Mr. Jami Chandio, a renowned and seasoned writer and analyst emphasized on the need of arranging such festivals to promote peace and social harmony among the people and to minimize extremism.
The purpose of arranging this festival was:
To provide joint platform to people across religious, sectarian, cultural and ethnic groups for social and cultural interaction.
To provide opportunity to people across different religious, sectarian, cultural or ethnic identities including men and women, persons with disability and transgender for joint celebrations through common cultural practices such as music, theatre, poetry, child performances, traditional storey telling etc.
To promote common values among people across different identities including men and women, youth persons with disability, transgender through positive cultural practices and inheritance