| SDNP
conducts Pakistan's first ever Sindhi Web Authoring
Workshop in Hyderabad |
May
30, 2001 |
SDNP
and IUCN's NGO/Communications Unit conducted a two day training
workshop on "Sindhi Web Publishing" at Polytechnic
Government College, Hyderabad on May 28-29, 2001, in collaboration
with the Sindhi Language Authority (SLA), Hyderabad. This
was the first Sindhi web authoring workshop of its kind
in Pakistan. About 28 participants attended the event. There
were nine NGOs, six cultural and literary organizations,
eight Sindhi daily newspapers, two academic institutions
and one private sector organization.
The
objective was to build the capacity of the selected institutions
to develop, update and maintain websites in Sindhi language
using Mr. Ayaz Ali Shah's Unicode supported software. Mr.
Shah was the main resource person, who also developed the
Sindhi publishing software and fonts. He has also worked
as a consultant for SLA. Mr. Khalil Jibran was the other
resource person.
Participants
showed great interest and enthusiasm in the workshop as
they developed their institutes' websites in Sindhi. They
were also taught about Adobe Photoshop and other related
tools necessary for the language. Mr. Ayaz Shah announced
that his software is for free and that anybody can download
it from SDNP's website at www.sdnpk.org SDNP will also provide
technical assistance so that the Sindhi websites can be
hosted over the Internet. One of the special features of
this workshop is the training manual prepared in the Sindhi
language.
The
Vice Chancellor of Mehran Engineering University, Jamshoro/Sindh,
Dr. Abdul Rehman Memon was the chief guest in the opening
session. Mr. Qazi Asad Abid, managing editor Daily Ibrat,
Hyderabad was the chief guest in the closing session. He
also distributed the certificates among the participants.
Dr. G.A. Allana, chairman SLA who also spoke on this occasion,
praised SDNP/IUCN's efforts in arranging this pioneering
workshop, which was extensively covered by the media. Mr.
Nasir Ali Panhwar (NGO/CS unit), Mr. Umair and Mr. Asad
of played a crucial role in the success of the workshop.
