Chowrangi

Like previous years, WWF (not to mistaken with World Wrestling Federation) organized a carnival about conservation of environment and natural resources at PAF Museum, Sharah-e-Faisal, Karachi. The event was organized on Sunday, January 22, 2012.

This year Toyota was the main partner. So the event was called Toyota WWF Carnival.

Like previous years, schools across Karachi participated with their models, projects and demos, highlighting the need of conservation and protection of environment.

The participants not only included top tier schools like Mama Parsi, BVS, Saint Michaels, BeaconHouse, Dawood Public, Generations’ and City School, but medium and small schools from Gulshan-e-Iqbal, North Nazimabad, Malir and Organi were also present in the carnival, generating a healthy competition and proving that talent can nurture any where.

Here are some observations on the Toyota WWF Carnival at PAF Museum:

Traffic Mismanagement: Old entrance to PAF Museum is closed and now the gate after Karsaz bridge (leading to COD and Rashid Minhas Road) is used for entry. This caused massive traffic jam on the bridge as the entrants to PAF Museum created a bottleneck for vehicles coming down from the bridge. While there were some members of traffic police present on the scene, they were not very much interested in doing their job. No one from the organizers or PAF Museum was on the scene. The bottleneck lasted for hours, keeping vehicles stuck across the length of Karsaz Flyover.

Toyota Car Show? Toyota was the major sponsor of the event so they had primer advertisement spots on ground as well as had vehicles on display. However, nothing was provided or highlighted to show what Toyota is doing for conservation of environment (theme of the carnival).

Litter as You Go! While the participants were presenting and preaching about conservation of environment, the visitors were doing exact opposite by trashing around the place. The event was used as a picnic spot with families sitting inside the display area, as well as around the parks, enjoying the sun and littering as they go. Some conservation of the environment, for sure.

Music! What’s the Need? Loud music, most of it Indian, was on play most of the time. Not sure how it was connected with the theme of event.

Mind Your Language. All participants (students from classes 3 – 10), tried to present in English. Many fumbled and jumbled as they went. Not sure why they did not use the language they were comfortable with to convey their message. It would be much better. Very few of the participants were confident and had really worked hard on their presentations, judging by how they responded to cross questions on the topic.

Conclusion: Sans the traffic mismanagement issue and loud music playing inside, the WWF Toytota Carnival was an educational event, useful for both parents and kids.

Related:Conservation, Environment, Karachi, Karsaz Road, PAF Museum, Rashid Minhas Road, Sharah-e-Faisal, Toyota, WWF