Aaghaz-e-Dosti Report: 

Mumbai and Karachi: Aaghaz-e-Dosti, an Indo-Pak Friendship Initiative, are striving to counter stereotypes and misconceptions through their initiatives as they believe that it is the lack of communication as well as miscommunication that has sustained the conflict. To meet their objective, they have been organizing interactive sessions in schools and colleges called aman chaupal, seminars and discussions, public demonstrations, launch an annual Indo-Pak peace calendar among other efforts.

Aaghaz-e-Dosti has also been using ICT for peace-building. They have used ICT to conduct aman chaupal sessions but this time, they connected classrooms across the border.

In the first “Indo-Pak Classroom Connect”, they connected the grade 7 classroom of Ecole Mondiale World School (Mumbai) and Government Girls’ Secondary School (Gizri, Karachi) through video conference to facilitate interaction between students.

The interaction took place on 2nd December. The students interacted with each other over different issues. The students talked about culture, cuisine and Bollywood. Some of the questions were “How is Karachi?”, “How are people in Karachi?”, “What is your favorite food” a question by a Karachi student which had students to share about the diverse cuisines in India and Pakistan and had them to explore similarities and bond over pani puri.

The students also discussed their history textbooks and tried to know the reason for partition. Students of both India and Pakistan shared what they have studied. A student in Karachi referred to her book and said that she read that the muslims thought that after the British would go, Hindus who are in majority will rule over them and so they thought it will be better if they live separately. She added that what has happened has happened but we should now live in peace and not fight.

Read Full Report at: 

https://aaghazedosti. wordpress.com/2015/12/05/ first-indo-pak-classroom- connect-classroom-of-ecole- mondiale-world-school-mumbai- and-government-girls-senior- secondary-karachi-connected/