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Rising Leaders “Strategic Vision Conference”
Planning for the Future
April 23, 2005
By Aisha Chapra
 
A large group of new and returning members attended
Rising Leaders’ Strategic Vision Conference held at the Embassy
of Pakistan on April 23. The agenda for the Conference was focused on
engaging participants into discussion about the future of Rising Leaders.
DCM Mohammad Sadiq opened the conference with remarks about the potential
of Rising Leaders. He discussed the need for the Pakistani-American community
to make itself visible in the mainstream American society. He said that
the way to accomplish this is to give back to society. Professions that
in popular perception contribute to society, are politics, media, and
the arts in general. Young Pakistani-Americans have the opportunity to
carry forward the momentum provided by their parents, most of them immigrated
to the U.S. with little to their name.
He said one of the ways we can give back is to include the segments of
the Pakistani-American community whose potential to give back is not realized.
In the Pakistani-American community the percentage of homemakers is the
largest in comparison to any other minority community in the United States.
One simple way that homemakers can give back to the larger society, while
increasing the influence of the Pakistani community, is by joining school
boards. Mr. Sadiq estimated that if Pakistani-Americans did this, over
70,000 school boards in the U.S. would have Pakistani representation.
Rising Leaders can take the initiative of incorporating this segment of
the Pakistani-American community by giving women important roles in organizing
Rising Leaders events in their local communities.
Rising Leaders needs to be creative when looking at its future—it
needs to give back to its community to get recognition and to gain influence.
Another way that Rising Leaders can give back is through volunteering
their time, especially on Christmas and New Year. Many other non-Christian
communities volunteer their time on these holidays, which generates goodwill
and recognition. Rising Leaders can help build a strong Pakistani-American
identity through giving back in numerous ways—volunteering on Christmas
and New Year is just one of them.
Mr. Sadiq finished with the statement that there are many dreams that
Rising Leaders has and these dreams can be realized with organization,
hard work, and making the time for your community and committing to a
greater good.
The conference was designed to divide the participants into three workshops.
The group moderators were Program Director of Rising Leaders Aisha Chapra,
Director of Rising Leaders and Chair of National PSA Hyder Syed, and Director
of Rising Leaders Yaseen Nazir. Each group conducted three workshops each
during the day. After each small group workshop everyone met in the larger
group, called the “Committee of Whole”, to discuss the findings
and record actions of the workshops.
The first set of workshop discussions focused on Rising Leaders mission
statement and objectives. Each group analyzed the current mission statement
and suggested changes in it according to guidelines such as: Rising Leaders
will be a non-profit organization; Rising Leaders has filed for tax-exempt
status and its activities must be charitable and educational; Rising Leaders
is raising money for an Endowment that will support its activities in
the future; and Rising Leaders is dedicated to helping people pursue the
fields of Politics, Internationals Relations, Journalism and Media, and
Humanities in general.
The Committee of Whole met after the first workshop and each group had
a representative present their groups’ thoughts on how to improve
upon the Mission Statement. There was a discussion on the age limits for
Rising Leaders members. Majority consensus was that Rising Leaders can
bring in members that are young and motivated and will not discriminate
against anyone because of age.
The second set of workshops focused on the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities
and Threats (SWOT Analysis) for Rising Leaders. In the Committee of Whole,
each group presented two recommendations they thought were crucial for
Rising Leaders. One of the recommendations was to create a chapter that
will be the model for other chapters by having its own Board of Directors
and goals.
The third set workshops was focused on future objectives for Rising Leaders
and the exercises in the workshop attempted to make members think creatively
about Rising Leaders. First, each group was asked to pick a metaphor they
thought most aptly described Rising Leaders. Next, they were asked to
imagine three to five years from now and what the headline would be if
Rising Leaders is being featured on a major magazine cover? After these
quick exercises the workshop focused in on the vision of Rising Leaders.
People discussed developing a magazine, a newsletter, a mentorship program
and many other ideas were brought to the table.
In the committee of whole, each group shared a metaphor and headline they
felt applied to Rising Leaders. To close the day of workshops, Akir Khan,
spoke about the importance of Rising Leaders and Pakistani-Americans to
get involved in the American society through politics. He said that Rising
Leaders is a new organization and that this conference is its first step
in creating a strategic plan to achieve its future goals, “and we
must take baby-steps” to accomplish this. He finished with thanking
Mr. Sadiq and the organizers for hosting this event.
This was followed with Rahilla Zafar introducing our distinguished speakers’
panel. Mr. Mossadaq Chughtai, CEO of Zima Inc., spoke of the importance
of certain fields to ensure the success of the Pakistani-American community:
politics, journalism, and law. These fields will help the community become
stronger and entrench Pakistanis into American mainstream.
Mr. Shaukat Sindhu, CEO of Pakwatan.Com, spoke of the importance of finance
and reliability. A person has to be credible and reliable to succeed in
life. “You should always keep your commitments—your word should
be a guarantee and back that up by building a strong credit.”
Mr. Hanif Akhtar spoke of the importance of language in the Pakistani
culture and reading literature from around the world. He mentioned Iqbal,
Gandhi, Faiz, and many other great men in history. He compared how each
immigrant community has been where the Pakistani-American community is
today. And that each have struggled through to become important in the
mainstream American society.
Lastly, Mr. Faiz Rehman gave the participants tips on how to be involved
with the media in the U.S. He emphasized that one needs knowledge of the
media and there has to be a sense of timing to get coverage.
After dinner, participants were invited to attend a debriefing session
with the DCM and Rising Leaders Directors. The conference was a huge success
and everyone enjoyed the discussion format of the day. Visit www.risingleaders.org/strategy05.html
for more information on the results from the Strategic Vision Conference
and email RisingLeaders@gmail.com
with any questions or comments.
Images of the Conference
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