PAKISTAN

ASSOCIATION OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA INC

Annual Report
2009 -2010

by
Dr. Zarrin S Siddiqui
President
ROADMAP
2009 - 2010
Our roadmap which can be used as a which currently has one third of
framework for new Committee and members enrolled. Our vision for the
other emerging organisations comprised year was to encourage the use of social
of following major areas for action. networking specially for our senior From the President’s desk
members who sometimes feel isolated. It gives me immense pleasure on
1. Participation and promotion of
behalf of the Executive Committee to
community members Collaborations with state and national present this annual report. As you
2. Use of Web 2.0 technologies organisations in Australia and Pakistan will see that there have been some
3. Collaborations with state and major achievements during the year.
national organisations in At the community level within WA there These could have not been possible
Australia and Pakistan is one more active group that is without the hard work of this
APNAPAN established by Pakistanis at Committee who were all working full
Participation and Promotion of UWA in 2008 and was formally time except Ayaz Qaiser who is a full
Community members time postgraduate student. Our
inaugurated by His Excellency Jalil Abbas
major achievements include an
Jilani. PAWA collaborated with
Australia is one of the few countries in increase in membership (50%) and
APNAPAN on different projects including receiving grants for which our
the world where there is no dearth of
language fair at University of Western success rate was 50%.We have tried
opportunities if someone is willing to
Australia. our best to run the organization in a
contribute to active citizenship. We better and structured way with a
facilitated this process by disseminating At state level there are two roadmap that helped us in
the information and assisting the organisations Ethnic Communities maintaining our focus. PAWA News
community members as and when Council of WA (ECCWA) and Australian and many another initiatives have
required. There is always an event or an Asian Association (AAA). PAWA is been undertaken. With an increase
opportunity for our community member of both organisations and the in number of Pakistani families
migrating to WA one of the
members to participate and be President of PAWA is currently on the
challenges is a proper office which
recognised for their contribution and we management committee of ECCWA. An may be an initiative that next EC
ensured that in doing so our executive invitation from Sikh Association of WA needs to consider. Personally for me
committee members take a back seat. regarding participation in Dementia leading PAWA was a challenge and
project is also accepted by the Executive thanks to all who offered their
We also acknowledged the fact that valuable advice and cooperation.
Committee in their last meeting.
individuals in their own capacity can Ramdas of ECCWA and Vilma of
actively nominate or promote someone Among national organisations Network WoW were two of many mentors
whose efforts and services need to be who deserved my special thanks.
of Immigrant and Refugee Women of
recognised. Our roadmap for the year Australia (NIRWA) is a newly established Finally may I wish my profound
had a major emphasis on promoting the group to promote active participation of gratitude to every member of the
different talents that our community refugee and migrant women and the Executive committee along with their
members have in the field of literature President of PAWA is one of the founding spouses and family members
and creative arts. members on NIRWA Council. We have specifically and members of PAWA in
general for their tremendous support
also welcomed Australian Federation of
Use of Web 2.00 technologies and continued dedication and
Pakistani Organisations and decided to commitment. Last but not least
In the current era of globalisation where join the Federation thanks are due to my family
world is now termed as a global village members here and in Pakistan for
Lastly we have tried to keep our their support and valuable
use of social networking tools is of
roadmap for PAWA simple and suggestions.
essential importance for our survival.
straightforward rather than trying to
PAWA has its own facebook group Zarrin Siddiqui
establish objectives that are hard to
achieve within the time frame allocated.
 EVENTS 2009 - 2010
1. Independence Day
2. Farewell to Mr. Abdullah Khan
3. Opportunities for Research in
Higher Education
4. Eidul Fitr Barbecue
5. UWA Language Fair
6. Eid ul Azha Barbecue
Events 2009 - 2010 7. Active Family Challenge
8. Australia Day
In all there were thirteen events held during the tenure of this
9. Waterworks Week
Committee. When deciding upon the events we took care of three
10. Pakistan Day
aspects
11. Community Partnership
Program: Aged care
a. Events are held at different venues. 12. Community Partnership
Program : Alzheimer’s diseases
b. Events must cater for all age groups
13. Mushaira and Book launch
c. Wherever possible collaborations between various 14. Members’ Dinner at AGM
organizations be encouraged to get a wider participation.
Australia Day in Pakistan
Hence our events were scattered around different suburbs
including, Booragoon, North Perth, Crawley, Stirling, Mulaloo, Running consecutively for second year this event
is our one big achievement that I personally feel
Morley Rivervale etc. proud of. This is an excellent opportunity to
bring two cities close together and work
While the two musical functions gathered most of the collaboratively on projects that can serve for
participants (more than 300 in each) the active family betterment of Pakistan a country facing multiple
challenge was unique in the sense that it has equal number of challenges on multiple fronts.
participants from non Pakistani background and catered for While last year we visited Pediatrics unit, Civil
high school students and the young couples. Hospital, Karachi, this year Child Health
Education Foundation was the main focus. This
On the other hand two events held under community foundation is running various projects across
partnership program in collaboration with Australian Asian Pakistan and will benefit immensely from both
physical and human resources.
House focused on aged care services and other issues . These
attracted senior members and so was the Mushaira which Wherever you are in Pakistan you will find a
attracted a totally different group. Kids were more at ease project run by this organization and may be able
to contribute in a number of ways.
during barbecues where they can play and make as much
noise as they can. Through these programs we were also able
to discover talented members in various fields of performing
arts etc. All the participants in all programs performed
voluntarily and the association did not incur any charges.
There are no words that could offer our in-depth gratitude for
their offering their time and homes for rehearsals.

Matters of Heart
The sad demise of Imran Sattar was a major blow to us as it
opened a whole myriad of actions to be taken. While the
executive committee members were there to fully support
the bereaved family of young engineer it was very heart
breaking to know that the viewing time at Sir Charles
Gairdener Hospital are from 9 – 5 pm only and even for that
one has to make an appointment on the day and cannot be
done beforehand.
Keeping in view the seriousness of situation we had to
intervene and request the Managing Director of the hospital.
Thankfully the rule was relaxed within a couple of hours and
the family members who arrived after midnight were able to
go to hospital directly from the airport. I am very grateful to
Tony and the security guard at the mortuary who were not
merely present to help us but were truly empathic and did
their best to make family comfortable in their moments of
Grief. My personal thanks to them
Promoting Leadership
One of the key features of our events was to promote
leadership among members of the Executive committee and
other members hence the strategy we adopted was to let a
member of Executive committee lead the organization of an
event and rest cooperate as and when required.
This again helped us in sharing the workload efficiently and the
talents of the Committee members keep us surprising all the
time.
The two major musical events were led by Sumair Sajjad,
Mushaira and Book launch by Nazar Khan , Farewell to Abdullah
Khan and Series of Community Partnership Program was
coordinated by Mohammed Zaki.
Ayaz Qaiser was the lead for the reception with Pakistan Cricket
Team which could not be conceptualized because of unforeseen
circumstances. Active Family Challenge Bowling Night and
Australia Day event in Pakistan was coordinated by a young
volunteer Rida Ahmed. Dr. Farah Adeeb assumed the
responsibility of write ups. Nizamuddin assumed the catering
responsibilities and always ended up finding the best deals for
us as well as general supervision.
GRANTS
Received
Volunteer Grants 2009
Equipment bought
• Media Projector
• Laminator
• Printer cum fax
Active Family Challenge Grant
• Contributed partially towards
Bowling Night
Community Partnership Program in
collaboration with Australian Asian House
• Catering for two seminars
Pending Outcome
Volunteer Grants 2010
Zakat
Zakat is one of the five pillars of Islam and
on the request of our community members
we made available list of credible non-
governmental organizations in Pakistan on
our website which may benefit from any
sort of support in terms of donations and
zakat. This work needs to be continued.
Contacting Members
With the existing email service available
through MSN hotmail™ it was very difficult
to send an email to all the members because
of limitations. With our new email account
using our web hosting service this task has
been made easier and more efficient. While
we did not use options for separate email
accounts for the secretary and treasurer are
also available to be created.

Communications
PAWA NEWS
A fortnightly newsletter was mailed to all members and
those who have registered their expression of interest
to receive updates electronically. This is one of our
major success stories of the year with not a single issue
being missed. The objective of this newsletter was to
keep the Pakistani community updated of what’s
happening in Australia in community sector.
This newsletter was forwarded to all members of Ethnic
Communities council of Western Australia which
provided us a major platform to enhance the image of
our organization.
From the members’ feedback it was widely appreciated
and from the Executive Community perspective we did
not miss a single issue during our tenure. All past issues
of PAWA news are available at PAWA’s website.
Facebook™
The Association’s presence on facebook™ was another
widely appreciated fact by members specially from
younger group as it linked everyone from and outside
Australia. For someone to find information about
visiting, migrating or studying in Western Australia it
became their first point of contact. To date we have
ninety- six members subscribing to the PAWA facebook.
We also discouraged use of frequent emails to members
so in time of emergency the facebook™ group
contributed immensely for an immediate delivery of a
specific news to members and response was always
received.
Pak Avaaz™ and Sadaewatan™ are two major
newspapers where we have regularly contributed and
spread news about PAWA activities.
Moving forward
In 2008 Mr. Arif Sikander then President of
PAWA has set a tradition of conducting
elections as soon as the financial term is
over. Keeping this tradition alive this is the
third year in running that the PAWA
elections are being held within two weeks
of the end of financial year.
Membership Cards
Unfortunately we could not locate who was
the driving force behind printing a stack of
membership cards but these cards are now
being utilized and all paid members are
issued a membership card.
ABN Number
The Association also has an ABN number
allocated to it and is registered for GST so
from Ist July 2010 all subscriptions will incur
GST.
Promoting Community
A number of Pakistani migrants have been
involved in serving the community or even
achieving excellence within their own
professions. Sadiq Bux’s nomination for an
award for the contribution to
multiculturalism in Australia and Mrs. Shakila
Khan‘s nomination for the International
Women’s Day Award was part of
acknowledging their contribution.
We also decided to launch our own PAWA
star program as an annual event with
inaugural event to be coincided with the visit
of Foreign Minister of Pakistan’s visit to
Perth. However this program was postponed
at last moment and could not be launched.
FEDERATION OF PAKISTANI ORGANISATIONS
IN AUSTRALIA
At the national level in Australia this has
been a major breakthrough and PAWA is
proud to be part of the Federation. We are
currently working on finalization of the bye
laws and hope to finalise it at the official
meeting in Canberra.
PAWA Executive Committee 2009 - 2010: L to R Farah Adeeb, Zarrin
Siddiqui, Nazar Khan, Zaki Mohammad, Sumair Sajjad, Nizamuddin.
Missing: Ayaz Qaiser

Acknowledgments on behalf of Executive Committee

1. HE Fauzia Nasreen High Commissioner of Pakistan in Australia (2009 to date)

2. HE Jalil Abbas Jilani, High Commissioner of Pakistan in Australia (2009)

3. APNAPAN , Pakistani Student Association at UWA

4. Ethnic Communities Council of WA

5. Australian Asian Association

6. Pak Avaaz™ newspaper from Melbourne

7. Sadaewatan™ newspaper from Sydney

8. SBS Radio Urdu Service

9. Woodlinks™

10.Faiz Khan

11.Zahid Ali

©Pakistan Association of Western Australia

46 Kanangra Cr.
Greenwood
WA6024
president@pakistanassociation.com
0434841705