“Wall of Kindness” in Karachi
By Wazir Ali
The economic recession caused by sanctions imposed by Europe on Iran drove people of the country to stand up to embark on an innovative philanthropic work. They used walls as a source of compassion to deal with those harsh waves of hardship. The first wall of kindness was started in the city of Mashhad, where passersby wishing to donate clothing for the needy could hang them on the wall so that the needy could have it from there without being obliged to anyone. This deed of altruism further showed their presence in different cities of Iran.
This Iranian venture came to Pakistan in 2016. People replicated the idea and added different titles to the theme. The revamp dirty walls painted in different localities themed as “Wall of Kindness” by fixing hooks at the wall to hang the cloths for the indigent people.
Karachi, the financial capital as well as more commercialized city of Pakistan, holds highest figures of outdoor advertising vehicles mostly in the crowded areas to entice the ultimate consumers towards products or services. The multinational companies spend a reasonable amount for advertisement to place ads in higher public census areas. In this commercialized city, the empty walls are one of the cheapest advertising sources to appeal and shift the masses towards advertising message.
Along with their commercial usage, these walls are usually used by political and religious forces for running campaigns and detesting other communities. However, these cluttered walls are now being given aesthetic touch to recapitulate the history and culture aimed to promote the message of peace and unity. “I AM KARACHI” deserves excellence in promoting such socio – cultural activities in Karachi as a long wall along with MT Khan road is painted fantastically. Such motif to aware and engage the fragmented society believes to be good to curtail the sectarian slogan. It also limit the wide spread absurd propaganda of religious parties to let down other in order to clinch their higher standing and rightfulness over another.
At the same time, these mundane walls were being used to promote the concept of human charity by hanging warm clothes for the people who don’t have warm stuffs to confront the chilly waves in winter.
The current cold wave of arid climate of Karachi had made soft opening of human charity back in Karachi. Different locations were seen to be filled up with warm clothes. The handicaps and the needy people were approaching there for warm cloths. The Schon Circle located near Clifton Centre is one of those bequeathing places busy to sustain the noble concept in the winter. However, with the fall of winter, these empty walls are now seemed secluded and portray its solo scheme of clothing and less or non-essentiality of other stuffs required to vanquish the acute economic austerity. The campaign once started by Pakistani actor Ahsan Khan appeals for reformation and it will surely requires a solid wake-up call of humanitarian activists to reclaim the notion again of serving humanity to safe the easily accessible noble acts to be vanished . None existence of such stuffs makes the walls an empty slot to eclipse of painting to place a local advertising agencies to place the ads. Most of the walls are now partially painted by the advertisers.
This way of humanistic approach is seems more feasible because transparency has remained the pressing concern about NGOs. Any such type of initiatives need to be promoted and strengthened so that the penniless people could at least have dignified access to such essentialities without getting pained from endless questions of justification to prove their poverty. The idea of sharing and caring is well encouraging; however, it can be shifted into multifaceted human facilitation with an insertion of more generous acts as an extension to these initiatives to help the penurious people who have helplessly stayed around these places due to one or many more obvious reasons.
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