A common saying that festivals which come once in a year and brings a lots of happiness and joy for the peoples. On March 8 the International day of women becomes celebrated by the Sami Foundation at Umerkot by chance on the same day t here was a great religious festival of Hindu community was celebrated that is known as “HOLY”. Two years before on the occasion of Holy some negative elements created many issues and a big religious conflict on the name of Religion in the society to resist the communities to celebrate their festivals independently, and this year there was a great fear in the Hindu community of celebrating their Festival without any fear and a great issue become created for communities for not to celebrate their festivals with any peace and harmony and the major objective of this event was to promote the peace and harmony and for peace promotion in the back ward communities without any difference of caste , creed and colour and celebrated this events and to remove the discrimination in the communities for peace and harmony and promotion of the culture.

This year Sami Foundation by keeping in view this thing organized a mega event with more than one thousand participation of both male and female including all community of Thar and Barrage areas. The participation was more than one thousand in which 75% was female participation in the event also other NGOs also participated and the peoples from civil society of Umerkot and from Hyderabad also participated in the event. They also emphasises the importance of cultural peace and conveyed (The message of Love, sympathy and peace for the peoples cultures of the communities are the major symbols of Living Nations in the world (Ms. Rasheeda). The day of “HOLY” become more colour full and that was becomes looks likes a Lived Culture in the event.

As the day was colour full and the team of Sami Foundation also made the event very colour full with 100% participation of women in the program. Speeches were conducted by different men and women, Tablo were also performed by the boys and girls to highlight the importance of the rights of women and also on women empowerment to give the equal rights to the females and other activities were also performed in the program like “Dandia” game a cultural game become performed on the occasion of Holy 10 to 15 days before festival to convey the message of culture and a invitation to all the communities through Dandia to join us on such a great and peace full day and to share their important moments with us to made the occasion become more colour full and folk songs also performed.

To promote the message of “Soofisim” and to spread the message of Soofi of Sindh like Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai with its great and positive meaning Sami Foundation also organize the Much Kacheri to give the message of peace and harmony to the communities with love , peace and to continue our culture.

Voice of New generation (VNG) a group of youth become organized by the Sami Foundation at district Umerkot for “ROLE OF YOUTH IN PEACE BUILDING WITH THE SOURCE OF COMPOSITE HERITAGE” become trained on Right based Approach and to Increase the Advocacy & Networking Skill to highlight of rights and Local Culture of the community for keeping peace and Harmony in the society.

On this great occasion Sami Foundation also decorated some active socialist women with award who are continually struggling for the rights of women in the community and also for their education and other basic rights on the village level. And in the last civil society peoples also gave their remarks that such types of events are more positive and brings a great awareness in the communities and they highly appreciated the event and also the team work of Sami Foundation team on this type of celebration.

In the last all the participant take the colour and every face in the hall become colourful and gave the message that all the events and festivals are meaning full for all of us that either be related to Hindu, Muslim or any other community a great plate form were all the peoples become together all celeb rated both the events jointly.

(Deepawali Festival)

         The organization has been working with deprived and poorest communities for almost three years and has developed a liaison of self-confidence and reliability as well as trust among people. Collectively we decisive to prop up Harmony and peace in the region, this message will spread up from area; this event is converted in dewali celebration. This is the main strength of the organization. Through this connection LRP team conducted/ converted ICS activity in ‘’Dewali Festival’’ in Viklokar village during reporting period. There were 140 children and residents of villages including Muslim & Hindu; men and women have participated in festival. The children of LRP village actively participated in festival.

Deepawali marks the beginning of the Hindu New Year according to the Lunar Calendar. It literally translated means ‘Row of Lights’ (from Sanskrit: Deepa = lamp / awali = row, line). It celebrates the victory of Goodness over Evil and Light over Darkness – it ushers in the New Year. During Deewali people prays to Lakshmi, Goddess of wealth, light, prosperity and wisdom. On the day of the Deewali festival people (Men, Women & Children) prays and having a special made many different foods.

Rangoli;  A cultural symbol of Love, Peace and Harmony made by different Colours at the center of the floor in the house. It is believed that Rangoli is protecting their houses from devil and bad spirituals.

Deepawali Sweets were enjoyed by children and they become more happy when they all combine with each other and all the sweets made at house level become distributed in all the peoples in the society and  this gives the messaage that this is not only  sweet but we are distributing our culture, Peace and Love with all. The Festival of Lights takes place after the monsoon (Heavy rain) season has finished and the weather becomes nice and pleasant again.  Children of viklokar celebrated Deewali on 26th November 2011, like other parts of the region. The LRP team has made all the arrangements to celebrate the festival.

Children’s view

‘’ Presents are given to us and delicious food is prepared and exchanged. New clothes and jewellery are worn. Fireworks and firecrackers are set off to warn off evil spirits, so it is a noisy holiday too!’’

Message of Children:

We all pray to God that to bring such beautiful days of Happy for all to keep our Culture alive forever also we invite all the peoples of community become with us because we want to share such moments with all for the “Protection  of Culture” and For the “Promotion of Peace, Love and Harmony”.