AIESEC: Not just another “Leadership” organization

Written By: Onusha Ahmad

The word “Leadership “has become one of the most excessively used words in recent times. It is either a “Leadership” conference that you have been invited too or asked to join an organization that claims to produce future “Leaders”.

One such organization that is aiming to produce future leaders is AIESEC. AIESEC is the world’s largest student run organization with its headquarters located in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Their motto is, “Empowering Young People for Peace and Fulfillment of Humankind's Potential”.

I sat down with the Vice President of Branding, Communication and Information Management Hussain Dewani and Sheeba Asad who leads the Social Media Team for AIESEC in Karachi as the Brand Cops met for their first portfolio meeting of the new quarter.

When asked what exactly AIESEC is, this is VP Branding and Communications had to say, “AIESEC is an international platform where an ordinary student can showcase their talent and could help the world to connect with their country. AIESEC was established back in 1948 after World War II when the students of European countries believed in the fact that the world needs peace and that it could be done when different people from around the world strive for it.”

It has been sixty six years since the inception of this organization and now this is where they stand.

“It is 2014, and we are connected to 125 countries and territories, have 100K members, more than 500K international interns, and more than 87K partner organizations. AIESEC has recently collaborated with United Nations for the Post 2015 Sustainable Development Goals Discussion”, adds Dewani.

So what really does make this organization different from all the other student run organization? Well here it is.

“When we talk about breaking the cultural barriers, we make people go out of their comfort zone and work in a diversified environment. AIESEC offers Global Internship program to students. Through these programs, Students can either work on a Social Project abroad or at a Corporate Company abroad. AIESEC also provide unlimited leadership opportunities to its members and welcomes new ideas to be implemented. So far, more than 70% of AIESEC Alumnus has taken leadership opportunities in their community according to our recent survey’, says Dewani.

“AIESEC gives you the chance to work in an environment which gives you an ample scope of growth along with leadership opportunities, pushing forth the 'leader' in you. In addition to that, it sends people on exchange and has interns from abroad coming in for local projects, giving you a 'Global' edge. Therefore, it can be concluded that it makes you a 'Global Leader'”, adds Sheeba.

But how exactly does this international student run organization compete with other societies present in university? Well this is how they do it.

“A lot of student organizations work but not many of them have a clear vision. Not many of them strive to create better leaders, neither are they are concerned about the voices of our youth. AIESEC stands out from them in a much brilliant way and provides life changing experiences to its stakeholders.” says Dewani. Also students experience cultural diversity and a corporate exposure. When we talk about going Global, we collaborate with a lot of companies who support our cause which eventually gives a chance to those who are connected with us to be globally known.”

“Also university societies cannot provide its stakeholders with an opportunity which is aligned to their career goals, they do not work globally, and not many of them have 100,000 members connected with them. AIESEC is different from them in terms of numbers, purpose and vision. We do not plan to compete with them because we have a different purpose from any of the university society”, adds Sheeba.

When asked what sort of projects AIESEC Pakistan usually did and what they helped with, this is what Dewani had to say.

“In Pakistan, we mostly facilitate projects related to Culture, Women Empowerment, Environment sustainability and Education. Our projects create a global impact by changing the perspective of our international interns. They then realize how different Pakistan is and what they witness over media is not completely correct.”

“Social Media is a great tool to create awareness about AIESEC. AIESEC is the largest youth based organization in the world and the majority of people using social media fall in the same age bracket as AIESECer’s. Hence, users of social media are the target market for AIESEC as an entity. It can be effectively used to create a positive image about the organization”, says social media leader Sheeba Asad.

When asked about the plan for this organization, Hussain Dewani had this to say, “I plan to achieve the Global recognition of our country. Pakistan is known for Bombs, Drones, Taliban, Disasters, etc. I want people to look up to us and say that the great people like Prof. Abdus Salam, Malala, Samina Baig and more are from Pakistan. I want our country to be recognized in United Nations Peace Summit, I want the youth of our nation to rise and strive for something meaningful and this can all be done with AIESEC's platform”.

Right now AIESEC is busy with their next big camping called Youth Speak. When asked what this movement all about was, Sheeba Asad had this to say, “Youth Speak is basically a youth based survey that gives young people an opportunity to voice their concerns, opinions and ideas on social issues, be it on a local or global level”.

With this new initiative AIESEC aims at voicing the concerns of the youth.

With leader like  Bill Clinton, former president of United States, Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of United Nations & Peter Wuffli, former CEO of UBS. There are a lot of more leaders AIESEC has been creating and they are already giving their contribution to make their society much better place.

Happy Birthday Younis Khan

Happy Birthday Younis Khan, hope you keep on playing forever and break all the batting records of Pakistan. 

Younis Khan is not my favorite player, he never has been. But I have known him for a very long time and I can bet you won't find a better, caring, helpful, humble human being ever. I respect him for so many reasons, and one of them is that he is a team payer.

The is a modern great because ... He won Pakistan the T20 World Cup, He is a modern great, he has scored the most centuries for Pakistan in Test Cricket, he has the most catches for Pakistan in Test Cricket, he has so many records that people will get to know over the time, especially when he retires.

He was so desperate to be part of the team that on the 2001 tour of New Zealand when although he was not in the playing eleven but was part of the team so to help the team he used to carry the kit bags of other senior players, used to even wash their clothes! He still does that for his team mates, even though he one of the most senior players in the team.

Few people notice but Younis Khan has lost his parents, his sister and brothers over the past 7 years, but you still see him with a smile on the cricket field, playing those sweep shots, those back foot cuts, and taking those cheeky singles!

Long may you live, long may you keep serving Pakistan, long may you keep breaking all the records and scoring so many more runs, long may you keep smiling. Happy Birthday once again. 

A Trip to Kalash Valley, Pakistan

 

Brian Glyn Williams.
Professor of Islamic studies, U. Mass Dartmouth.
Author of 'Predators' and 'The Last Warlord'.

The New York Times recently published an article that had a fascinating description of the Kalash, an ancient ethnic group living high in the remote mountains of Pakistan's Hindu Kush. For centuries this light-skinned, pagan people have claimed to be the long-lost descendants of Alexander the Great's world-conquering armies, which invaded this region in the fourth century B.C. The animist Kalash are outwardly different from the darker-skinned Pakistani Muslims who live in the lowlands below them, so it seemed plausible. However, there had been no proof of this remarkable claim until the geneticists quoted in The New York Times found that the Kalash people's DNA seems to indicate that they had an infusion of European blood during a "mixing event" at roughly the time of Alexander's conquests. This isolated people are thus most likely the direct descendants of the ancient Greek-Macedonian armies who set up outposts in this region 2,300 years ago.

Few outsiders have visited this forgotten tribe, whose homeland is located near the inaccessible mountain border of Taliban-controlled zones of Afghanistan. But in 2010 I and a friend, Adam Sulkowski, made a journey to the snow-capped Hindu Kush in search of this ancient European pagan people living in an unstable Muslim country. This is our story.

University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, Spring 2010

For a number of years now, I have been teaching a class for the history department in which I do a "tour" of the great empires of antiquity, from pharaonic Egypt to Viking Europe. But for all my students' interest in the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians and the Romans, it is the exploits of Alexander the Great that inevitably lead to the most questions. Recently one of my students in History 101 asked me during class what happened to the far-flung garrisons of Greeks and Macedonians who were settled in the far corners of Alexander's vast empire. I told her that over the succeeding centuries they disappeared or were absorbed by succeeding waves of invaders. All that was left of the Greeks who left their Mediterranean homeland to settle in distant lands of Africa and Asia was the occasional coin, spearhead or amphitheater testifying to the conquests of one history's greatest leaders.

But then, after some thought, I corrected myself and told her the legend of the Kalash people of Pakistan.

High in the snow-capped Hindu Kush on the Afghan-Pakistani border lived an ancient people who claimed to be the direct descendants of Alexander the Great's troops. While the neighboring Pakistanis were dark-skinned Muslims, this isolated mountain people had light skin and blue eyes. Although the Pakistanis proper converted to Islam over the centuries, the Kalash people retained their pagan traditions and worshiped their ancient gods in outdoor temples. Most importantly, they produced wine much like the Greeks of antiquity did. This in a Muslim country that forbade alcohol.

Tragically, in the 19th century the Kalash were brutally conquered by the Muslim Afghans. Their ancient temples and wooden idols were destroyed, their women were forced to burn their beautiful folk costumes and wear the burqa or veil, and the entire people were converted at swordpoint to Islam. Only a small pocket of this vanishing pagan race survived in three isolated valleys in the mountains of what would later become Pakistan.

After class the student came to me and asked me if I'd ever visited the Kalash tribe of the Hindu Kush. Wistfully I told her I had not, but that it was my dream to do so.

I remember her response vividly. "Dr. Williams," she said, "you're always telling us to get passports and get out see the world. Why don't you take your own advice and just do it?"

Lahore, Pakistan, June 2010

A student's challenge can be a powerful thing, and in June my colleague from the business school, Adam Sulkowski, and I set out to travel into the Hindu Kush on the Pakistani-Afghan border to see this ancient race for ourselves.

But when we arrived in Lahore after flying through Abu Dhabi, Rafay, our Pakistani host, reacted with caution toward our bold dream of visiting the lost descendents of Alexander the Great.

"It's a dangerous, two-day journey off-road into the mountains," he warned us. "But that's not the most important obstacle you'll have to overcome. To get to the remote homeland of the Kalash, you need to cut through the Swat Valley."

Rafay then pointed out our intended route on a map, and Adam and I groaned. Our dream was falling apart. We both knew that the Swat Valley was a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban. In 2007 the Taliban brutally conquered this beautiful, alpine-like valley and forced a puritanical version of Islam on the local people. They also used the valley as a springboard for sending suicide bombers throughout Pakistan.

"But all hope is not lost," Raafay continued. "The Pakistani army just reconquered most of the valley this winter and have opened the main road through it. If you don't stray from the road and there is no fighting, you just might be able to pull it off."

Nervous about the prospect of adding a journey through a war zone to our trip to the Kalash, Adam and I then traveled to the capital, Islamabad. There, after much searching, we found an ethnic Pashtun driver who claimed to have once traveled to the remote homeland of the Kalash. He not only knew the route but had a tough SUV to get us there.

After haggling for the price of the trip, we set out driving across the burning plains of Pakistan, where the heat soared to 120 degrees. Finally, after traversing the country from the Indian border to the Afghan border, we arrived at the mountains.

And what mountains they were. The Hindu Kush are an extension of the Himalayas and soar to 25,000 feet. As we drove into the tree-covered mountains, the temperatures blissfully began to drop. While we found respite from the heat, everyone grew tense. Saki, our driver, warned us that we were now in Taliban territory. We had entered the Swat Valley.

We had not traveled far before we were stopped at the first of many Pakistani army checkpoints we would encounter. When the soldiers manning it discovered that there were two Americans in the truck, they strongly warned us to avoid leaving the road. One of them asked us to sign our names in a registration book and proclaimed that we were the first foreigners to enter the Swat Valley since the Taliban had taken it in 2007.

That night we stayed in Dir, a Swat Valley village that locals claimed had briefly served as a hiding place for Osama bin Laden when he fled Afghanistan in 2001's Operation Enduring Freedom.

Rumbur, Kalash Village, Pakistan

The next day we made it safely out of the Swat Valley after crossing a mountain pass at 10,000 feet, and a nearby glacier. We were now in the scenic Chitral Valley. We drove up this valley for several hours before our driver grew excited. Gesturing to the dark mountains on our left, he said one word with a grin: "Kalash."

With mounting excitement we left the main "road," crossed a large river and began to drive up a mountain trail straight into the mountains. This continued for a couple of hours before the narrow valley opened up and our exhausted driver announced that we had finally arrived in Rumbur, the most isolated of the Kalash valleys. Having made our way from Boston to Abu Dhabi to Lahore to Islamabad to Swat to Chitral, we had finally reached our destination in the high mountains on the Afghan border. It was now time to meet the Kalash.

It did not take us long to find them. Adam was the first one to spot a Kalash shepherdess in the trees, wearing a stunningly bright peasant costume. After seeing the faceless burqas of the women of the Swat, the contrast between Muslim women and this Kalash woman could not have been greater. As we drove along we saw several more brightly clad Kalash women. But when we tried to take their pictures, they shyly ran off and hid behind trees. Worried that we might break some local taboo regarding photography, we continued on our way.

Soon we entered the Kalash village of Rumbur. The wooden houses were built in steps above one another, going up the valley's walls, and the village square filled up with Kalash curious to see us. Among them was Kazi, the village holy man. Everyone stood back as he approached us and heard our request to stay with the Kalash for a few days and learn about their culture. Kazi, a wizened man with twinkling eyes, heard us out and thought about it for a while. After some thought he finally smiled and gave us his blessing. He proclaimed that as blue-eyed "pagans" (the Kalash believe that in worshiping the Trinity, Christians worship three gods), we were like the Kalash and therefore welcome to stay with them.

With that, everyone's shyness was forgotten, and the village men and women proudly posed for photographs and allowed us into their homes. Once again, the contrast to the Pashtun Muslims in Swat and greater Pakistan was tremendous. The conservative Muslims of Swat had women's quarters in their houses where no outsiders were allowed. Here the women were free and dressed in beautiful folk costumes that seemed to belong to a different era.

During our stay we hiked up into the mountains overlooking the Afghan border and were taken to the Kalash people's outdoor temples. There they made sacrifices of goats to their ancient mountain gods. Sadly, most of their ancient wooden idols had been stolen or defaced by neighboring Muslim iconoclasts who found them to be heathen abominations. We were also told that one of the local leaders who fought in the courts to protect the Kalash from such problems had recently been assassinated. On many levels we sympathized with the Kalash -- who were losing numbers to conversion to Islam -- as a dying race facing an existential threat. And I must say that after the heat, pollution and crowds of Pakistan proper, we found this pristine mountain enclave filled with incredibly hospitable farmers and shepherds to be a veritable Shangri La. Over and over again we were invited by smiling Kalash into their simple wooden houses for meals, where we talked about life beyond their remote valley. Most Kalash had only left their valley a few times in their life, usually to go to a neighboring Kalash valley for a marriage or to celebrate a great festival.

On our final evening in Rumbur, the villagers held a great feast for us. We celebrated with the famous Kalash red wine. My most endearing memory of the mystical night was of Adam doing a snake dance with a local elder, snapping his fingers in rhythm and dancing lower and lower to the ground in the center of the clapping audience.

The next morning we were woken to the sound of cows being led by children through the misty village. We said our goodbyes to everyone and drove out of Rumbur. As I looked back I saw several Kalash girls standing on a terraced hill above us and waving to us in their bright costumes. With our driver, a Pashtun Muslim who had never drunk before, recovering from the previous night's festivities, we took leave of our hosts and left this fragile mountain enclave to make our long journey out of the mountains. It was now time to reenter Pakistan proper, a land that seemed far removed in space and time from the ancient rhythms of the Kalash.

Top 10 most Expensive Paintings

 

1. The Card Players $273 Million

Concept of Sacrifice in different Religions

Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals to a higher purpose, in particular divine beings, as an act of propitiation or worship. While sacrifice often implies ritual killing, the term offering (Latin oblatio) can be used for bloodless sacrifices of cereal food or artifacts. For offerings of liquids (beverages) by pouring, the term libation is used.

Judaism.

The centrality of sacrifices in Ancient Israel is clear, with much of the Bible, particularly the opening chapters of the book Leviticus, detailing the exact method of bringing sacrifices. Sacrifices were either blood sacrifices (animals) or bloodless offerings (grain and wine). Blood sacrifices were divided into the burnt offerings (Hebrew: עלה קרבנות) in which the whole animal was burnt, guilt offerings (in which part was burnt and part left for the priest) and peace offerings (in which similarly only part of the animal was burnt and the rest eaten in ritually pure conditions). The prophets point out that prayer and sacrifices are only a part of serving God and need to be accompanied by inner morality and goodness.

Escape story of 14 year old Kevin Lunsmann

The nightmares still come sometimes, yanking Kevin Lunsmann back. He forgets he is safe in his own bedroom, guitar leaning against the wall, cats curled up asleep, in his family’s little yellow ranch house in Lynchburg. He forgets classes at Brookville High School, football games with his friends, learning to drive, all the normal routines of a typical Virginia kid.

In his nightmares he’s back in the Philippines, hungry and afraid, a prisoner of Islamic terrorists.

Kevin was 14 and on summer vacation with his mother when they were kidnapped.

They didn’t know at first who their captors were. They didn’t know that the men in camouflage fatigues who surrounded them on a beach barking orders in a language they didn’t understand were part of an al-Qaeda-linked group known for beheading its victims.

But as they huddled at gunpoint in a boat speeding south, a full moon glowing over a sea empty of even a single fishing boat that might send up an alarm, Kevin’s mother looked at her son, and she began to pray.

Kevin and his mom, Gerfa, had been in the Philippines for two weeks in 2011, on an island near where she had grown up, lapped by clear blue water and white sand, behind a tangle of mangroves.

Gerfa had moved to the United States as a teenager when an older sister married a U.S. naval officer, but she loved to visit her family in the Philippines. They stayed in a small hut on stilts next to relatives’ homes on a remote part of Tictabon Island, toward the southern end of the string of islands that make up the Southeast Asian nation.

Monocolored Towns around the World

Ever seen the movie Pleasantville? Or imagined living in a place where everything is the same color? Well this concept actually exists. Except for it's not in black and white. It in blue, yellow, and red! Here are 8 cities and towns which are of the same color.

1. Juzcar, Spain

 

2. Izamal, Mexico

Even Roses have Thorns

Written By: Maida Naeem

Falling in love?
Having a broken heart?
Having feeling for someone?

These are just some terms related to an unknown relationship of heart and mind that make you do things you never could have possibly done.

People talk about “Love” a lot.

Some are dying from broken heart and some just want to make up for it.

Some don’t believe in it but still talk about it. And some are just head over heals with it.

I know I’m not the first one to write about this but I was just thinking about it so I thought I should write.

It’s a myth that you fall in love only one time in your life and other are just ummm flings maybe.

So, as we are familiar with the term “falling in love” and everything that falls breaks eventually.And this comes with a cycle. Breaking and mending and breaking and mending and on and on and on it’s just a never ending cycle..

Well, In my opinion there is no falling in love once in your life. Because in your first experience or like I call it a “fling” you break your bones and decide not to do it again and let it heal or what so ever. But in that mending process you start missing the things you use to do when you were with someone. You would want to forget it in anyway possible. Most probably you will try making new friends or spend more time with your family. But in between you will again think of giving it a try again. And that’s when another regret of your life makes it’s roots strong. Strong enough to hold you back for your life. Anyways this process goes on until your adult life when you’re mature enough to stop getting yourself hurt or give it a last go that will finally reach your heart. And break it into so many pieces that then there is no mending or breaking anymore.

That the only option you are left with is being strong enough to let go of your past and move on. And then time comes when your sitting on a couch and just thinking about your past and analysing it and trying to figure out that in all this did real love ever existed? Or they were just attraction? may be you’ll never find out the answers.

People leave for a reason come in your life for a reason. It’s part of the process. So, If it’s mean’t to be it’s mean’t to be. There is no point of crying over them for ages.

And yes love do exist in shape of relations we get we are born. Or may be before that when we were just a plan a plan that ALLAH made for our parents. But than he loved us in the way no one else could. So be thankful for what you have..

All Apologies

Written By: Saniya Ahmad 

Dear person who had a bad eye,

I apologize for my rude behavior. I should not have stared at you so incredulously for having a bad eye. I should not have stared at you because you were different. It wasn't you fault that you were born with it. You did not ask to be this different. I’m sure you must have had a difficult time going about, with people awkwardly looking at your eye, just like I did.

You were so polite, helping me buy the Converse I had come to buy. You even went out of your way to give me a 10% discount. You even told me I could replace my Converse if I didn't find them too comfortable. You told me to come back soon for the new stock. You told me to have a nice day. Basically, you were nothing short of a perfect gentleman.

But I kept staring at your eye. While on one hand, I was trying my level best to pretend you were just as normal as I was, on the other hand, I couldn't stop thanking God it was you and not me. I felt ashamed of myself for ostracizing you from my definition of normal but I couldn't help it and I want to apologize to you for that.

I’m sure you must have met a lot of people in your life who mocked you or jeered at you because of your eye. You must have experienced people cringing at you when they see your face. You must have faced rejection while making friends, while applying for jobs, while just trying to live your life as normally as you possibly could. And I apologize for that. You see, us, normal people, we have a disability too, of the mental kind. We just can’t accept people who have physical disabilities. We can’t “hang out” with people who have a defect of any sort, because some time or the other, we end up letting them know we think they’re abnormal, they’re peculiar, they’re weird, that they’re just not like us.

All I want to say is a sorry and a thank you. A sorry for being so rude, for making you feel like you weren't, when actually you are more normal than most of us “normal” beings. A thank you for being kind and polite even though I was technically very rude to you. I don’t have much to say because I am not able to express my feelings into words but in the words of Nirvana:

What else should I write
I don’t have the right
What else should I be
All apologies

Sincerely,

Me.

Help Me Study Campaign

The Story.

There are things in life which just happen suddenly or just happen because they have to happen and end up teaching you a lot and end up changing your thoughts or the way you perceive things.

It was evening time when I had to rush towards the market, the sun was setting and darkness was taking over when I reached the market I saw a cute little boy sitting on a bench. The shops were about to close so I ran towards them ignoring the kid, shopped a little and then came back.

The boy was still sitting on the bench, I saw he had a poster in his hand with words written ' Help me Study ' , he was such a cute little kid that I couldn't help but stop in front of him and stare. He looked like an Asian (and later on I came to know that he is from Pakistan) When he notice that I was standing near him he said in his cute voice ' A penny please! Help me study please '.

I checked my pockets but I barely had a penny in my pocket after shopping let alone some amount worth giving. So instead of giving anything I just smiled at him and told him that for now I don't have anything but will help him tomorrow if he is around.

I thought about leaving but then don't know why I sat beside him and started talking. Ever since I have been to the UK, this was the first time I was talking with a kid and it made me excited, people are so conscious here usually and don't even let you touch their kid let alone sit and talk.

Education is free for most of the locals here in the UK but most of the kids who come from abroad either study in the schools opened by their own country men, and are a little costly.

He told me that he has no parents (after further investigation I came to know that he lost his parents in a car accident and that none of  his relatives in Pakistan wanted him back, his parents had moved to the USA for completing their PHD) and is living at a nearby place* and he also told that he wanted to study in a proper school so his guardian* left him here to collect some pennies. I had seen few kids asking for pennies for some dummies but I thought that was a new form of begging.

We both kept on talking until his guardian came and took him away, I came back and quickly called a couple of friends and discuss with them an idea that came in my mind. I thought I will try and collect some funds for him, as much as I can.

The next day I went back to the market, helped the kid from my side for now as much as I could, I had already taken the address and information about him from his guardian. For now a total amount of 51000 PKR ( $500) are required to kick start the education of the kid.

The Idea.

I thought I will help this kid first and to be very honest, hopefully once I get the required $ 500 and pay his initial funds later on I will paying for his education on my own but for now for now giving $ 500 for me alone is not possible.

All episode gave me an idea! That I can actually help kids in Pakistan who want to study but are unable to do so. They can be anyone, from our servant's kids to people around us who are poor and can't afford the education of their kids. Why just a on off thing? It has always been an aim to open schools in each of the provinces of Pakistan for kids who can't afford or study due to different reasons, so perhaps this is the chance when I can start doing what I always wanted to.

The Plan.

Next day I went to the University and discussed the idea with few other friends who to my amazement agreed to help me and also have discussed the idea with a few of my friends in Pakistan and in few other countries and for now the response seems to be good. I have asked one of my professor, who was born in Pakistan but has been living in the UK for over 30 years now to help me manage the funds I collect.

The plan is very simple. Identify a kid in Pakistan, estimate his educational cost for a year, collect funds, pay for his education. Few people are already identifying a few kids and you guys can do that too.

I know it is a difficult task maybe, maybe because people say they will help but when the time comes they don't and because everyone earns for their own self and giving away their money for a cause they don't know much about may not be easy for them. I also know it can take time, months or maybe years to gain the trust and make this thing a success but I am sure this is something worth trying.

Making it Possible.

We have named this campaign as Help Me Study.

We will be using the blog's facebook page for promoting the cause as making a new facebook page and asking people to like it will become troublesome and because many people know about the blog and the page already, we will also try and get a webpage for this soon, social networking will be done through twitter once again from my and the blog's twitter accounts and trending.

My friend, Amna Javed will be responsible for collecting funds from Pakistan. She will also be campaigning for it in her university and later on collect funds, this will be our first proper try. Another friend Rabia Nasir from UAE will also campaign for this in her school and hopefully soon people will know more about it. Which ever event takes place in relation to the campaign the pics will be posted on as many platforms as possible. All the money collected, the amount and the spending will be regularly updated on the blog and the page.


Will request you people who are reading this to help in whatever way you can. If you want any more information, want to help, or want to know anything feel free to contact at raafayawan@gmail.com or call at +447881935815 , thank you.

You can send your donations to.

Note: The website link (if we get it), the blog page link, and other contact details will be update here soon.

Pushpa Basnet, Pulling children out of Nepal's Prisons

Pushpa Basnet doesn't need an alarm clock. Every morning, the sounds of 40 children wake her up in the two-story home she shares with them.

As she helps the children dress for school, Basnet might appear to be a housemother of sorts. But the real story is more complicated.

All of these children once lived in Nepal's prisons. This 28-year-old woman has saved every one of them from a life behind bars.

Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world -- according to UNICEF, 55% of the population lives below the international poverty line -- so it lacks the social safety net that exists in most Western nations. Space is extremely limited in the few children's homes affiliated with the government.

So when no local guardian is available, an arrested parent often must choose between bringing their children to jail with them or letting them live on the streets. Nepal's Department of Prison Management estimates 80 children live in the nation's prisons.

"It's not fair for (these) children to live in the prison because they haven't done anything wrong," said Basnet, who started a nongovernmental organization to help. "My mission is to make sure no child grows up behind prison walls."

Basnet is one of several in Nepal who have started groups to get children out of prison. Since 2005, she has assisted more than 100 children of incarcerated parents. She runs a day care program for children under 6 and a residential home where mostly older children receive education, food, medical care and a chance to live a more normal life.

"I had a very fortunate life, with a good education," Basnet said. "I should give it to somebody else."

Basnet was just 21 when she discovered her calling, she said. While her family ran a successful business, she was studying social work in college. As part of her studies, she visited a women's prison and was appalled by the dire conditions. She also was shocked to discover children living behind bars.

One baby girl grabbed Basnet's shawl and gave her a big smile.

"I felt she was calling me," Basnet said. "I went back home and told my parents about it. They told me it was a normal thing and that in a couple of days I'd forget it. But I couldn't forget."

Basnet decided to start a day care to get incarcerated children out from behind the prison walls. While her parents were against the idea at first -- she had no job or way to sustain it financially -- eventually they helped support her. But prison officials, government workers and even some of the imprisoned mothers she approached doubted that someone her age could handle such a project.

"When I started, nobody believed in me," Basnet said. "People thought I was crazy. They laughed at me."

But Basnet was undaunted. She got friends to donate money, and she rented a building in Kathmandu to house her new organization, the Early Childhood Development Center. She furnished it largely by convincing her parents that they needed a new refrigerator or kitchen table; when her parents' replacement would arrive, she'd whisk the old one to her center.

Just two months after she first visited the prison, Basnet began to care for five children. She picked them up at the prison every weekday morning, brought them to her center and then returned them in the afternoon. Basnet's program was the first of its kind in Kathmandu; when she started, some of the children in her care had never been outside a prison.

Two years later, Basnet established the Butterfly Home, a children's home where she herself has lived for the past five years. While she now has a few staff members who help her, Basnet is still very hands on.

"We do cooking, washing, shopping," she said. "It's amazing, I never get tired. (The children) give me the energy. ... The smiles of my children keep me motivated."

Coordinating all of this is no easy task. But at the Butterfly Home, the older kids help care for the younger ones and everyone pitches in with household chores. The atmosphere feels like an extremely large family, a feeling that's fostered by Basnet, who smothers the children with love. The children reciprocate by calling her "Mamu," which means "Mommy."

"I don't ever get a day off, but if I [didn't] have the children around me, it would be hard," she said. "When I'm with them, I'm happy."

All the children are at the Butterfly Home with the consent of the imprisoned parent. When Basnet hears about an imprisoned child, she'll visit the prison -- even in remote areas of the country -- and tell the parent what she can provide. If the parent agrees, Basnet brings the child back.

She is still eager, however, for the children to maintain relationships with their parents. During school holidays, she sends the younger children to the prisons to visit, and she brings them food, clothing and fresh water during their stay.

Ultimately, Basnet wants the families to reunite outside prison, and 60 of her children have been able to do just that.

Parents like Kum Maya Tamang are grateful for Basnet's efforts. Tamang has spent the last seven years in a women's prison in Kathmandu. When she was convicted on drug charges, she had no other options for child care, so she brought her two daughters to jail with her. When she heard about Basnet's program, she decided to let them go live with her.

"If Pushpa wasn't around, (they) could have never gotten an education ... (they) would have probably had to live on the streets," she said. "I feel she treats (them) the way I would."

Tamang's oldest daughter, Laxmi, said she can't imagine life without Basnet.

"My life would have been dark without her," said Laxmi, 14. "I would've probably always had a sad life. But now I won't, because of Pushpa."

In 2009, Basnet started a program to teach the parents how to make handicrafts, which she sells to raise money for the children's care. Both mothers and fathers participate. It not only gives them skills that might help them support themselves when they're released, but it also helps them feel connected to their children.

"Often, they think that they're useless because they're in prison," Basnet said. "I want to make them feel that they are contributing back to us."

Making ends meet is always a struggle, though. The children help by making greeting cards that Basnet sells as part of her handicraft business. In the past, she has sold her own jewelry and possessions to keep the center going.

Her biggest concern is trying to find ways to do more to give the children a better future. She recently set up a bank account to save for their higher educations, and one day she hopes to buy or build a house so they'll always have a place to call home. Their happiness is always foremost in her thoughts.

"This is what I want to do with my life," she said. "It makes me feel (good) when I see that they are happy, but it makes me want to work harder. ... I want to fulfill all their dreams."

I am a Muslim

Written By: Sereen Fazili

I am a Muslim , so what is wrong 

This is the identity for which one should long

Peace is the message my religion spreads 

Wrong is the concept briefed to you by your heads

"Muslims are Terrorists" is what you think 

Every act of terrorism with Islam you link

The World Wars were fought not by us 

It was the Non-Muslims who created the fuss

We believe in peace and development of nations 

We are the symbols of goodwill and patience

When we fight , we fight for justice and our rights 

Otherwise, we believe in peace in both our days and nights

Islam is the only religion , so justified and true 

I alone don't say this , the science has proved

So Islam will be the only religion to dominate us all 

I'm a Muslim and I invite you towards Allah's call

I CAN

Written By: Alla Light (Armenia)

Time is eternity, life temporal instant. Our  days and years flow through its  swift-footed waters merging into the breath of centuries.   We are given  certain time and  many   tasks,  which make sense our lives. It’s wonder many people are suffering from boredom  in  such conditions.  Maybe monotony is a  result of  inactivity?Better complaining about lack of time than protesting  of boredom. I can be having many occupations that boredom called  unwinking second doesn't visit me.

When  our admiration towards the nature accompanies us everywhere the world becomes more beautiful. It's such enjoyable waking with smile and  delighting  in the freedom of living, which is highest of human vital rights. We need to recognize beautiful and  gray  gloominesses  cover with its  light   brilliances. One, who  continually thinks and  talks of one's problems will never know what is  light-heartedness. Sometimes I  think how can  we relieve the  earth life, because    the  beauty of living  equivalents its complexity. The best  way of relieving life is not making it heavier. I can live   easy when I'm not declining  in front of difficulties.

Envying means  searching into other people reasons of your own tribulations. While when we aspire, we  see others' luckinesses into  border of our possibilities. I can be seeker and reach to the realization of my desired  goals. 

The mountain is high compared to its foot and not of the clouds. At the top of  the mountain  many people think  about guiding  with elevation of  clouds and others   scare of failing down. I can climb   and feel   etheral  endlessness of   rise.

Human successes  are depend on  of one's ability   to telling  apart  primary tasks from secondary activities which provides one's discipline. Only by focusing  on important we are able to leave secondary tasks. Some people are fighting for reaching success, and others  are surrendering of bitterness of adversities. Abandon oneself means  surrendering hopelessness and doubt.   It's very difficult  finding  something  ready-made in life because  the human is called to  create. Who   continually waits  to the appearance of happy chances, one will never use  the ability to making opportunities  by oneself. I can trust my strengths even  the time when faith tries to leave me.

Life difficulties  are nursing  the source of human adaptability. We need to be resistant and flexible, because living means adjusting. The human is hit by many-many  storms. Of violent winds we  must   strengthen more   instead of failing. I can arise  like the phoenix,  which  burns  inextinguishable fires of extinct  ashes.

We must build the future instead of returning the past. If yesterday’s day   was a mistake hence tomorrow is the opportunity to correct it. These two poles are bridged each other by  today,  which is the visiting-card of future. I can acting in the  present,  of which effuses success of tomorrow.

Sometimes a  walk of life takes us to an  impasse.   When roads are  different and hazy, it's hard to  make a decision. Foggy uncertainty distorts the   simplicity of life.   We don't scare of making wrong decisions. We fear that people  may  blame us for our mistakes.   The important thing is  that we  wouldn't blame  ourselves and   feel the  torment of conscience.   If an  exit takes us to a new  impasse,  therefore we mustn't to be used of that. I can  tell apart  an  exit of  an  impasse and  outstrip.

The human is always   concerned by two questions;  to be able to understand desires of others and to  be clear.    These ideas are  interconnected each other with harmonic strings of tolerance. People are not  wrangling because of difference of opinion. They quarrel because of  they don't  tolerate each other's  view. I can respect a  standpoint of other people  at the same time with  no change my own opinion.

Some people  often criticize others  and try to find the  analysis of their  actions. By penetrating into works of others they forget about building their own lives. We as  recognize others  as we don't   informed  to  their  dark sides. I can busy with self-analysis and   all the   answers find  in  depths of my inner world. 

When a human speaks about cruelty of others, one underlines  one's own  tender-heartedness  which is the sun of kindness.

Sometimes that sun are covered  with ice, but love and compassion  warm  its again. I can learn this lesson and win  indifference.

We want justice  though we don't  fight for it  frequent.   And what is it?  Is justice a gift for  us, or it's a victory of  strongs.   A human  deserves to the realities what one dreamed and  created.   I can acting  and erecting the blissful justice  by myself.

I can- this expression  is the landmark and  pledge of success.   In a  human no motto     causes as   faith and confidence  as these words.   Unlucky  persons  tell "I want ", and  luckies say  "I can ". A human with one's nature is  a very  high creature.     One is apt   to seek, fight and  realize one's     admirable dreams.All the  conquests of science, entrancing works of art  and  culture   are  created  with   the internal suasion that  a human  is able to do  it.

Time is limited, but it’s free the human will of acting into its.    Strong is one, who   develops and  uses one’s  abilities and talents.  Nature gives us a lot of    talents, but we ought to  disclose those by ourselves.   Those  abilities   like being in a dormant state. We can wake up them only with assiduousness and obstinacy.  We must  trying ceaseless  for such long  till the desirable result   be  obvious. 

To me  to be able  means  having great and beautiful dreams, which  will grow clear purposes.   Making  such  practical steps, which demand  big strength and boldness.   Enter in fight with  your     weaknesses and win to  yourself.   In case of the opportunity helping  others  and  learning  the lesson of a dream of  luckies.   Really,  all the  strengths, which will  take us to the intrepid  highnesses  of success   come  into border of our capabilities. And most importantly :“To be able means believing in that you can do it." 

Street of Cries

Written By: Kimx Aziz

I´m in my room wondering why

These innocent people deserved to die.

I look out the window

I see blood everywhere

What was once a field of flowers

Is now a street of cries.

Why did this have to happen?

Why to my people?

They didnt even get time

To wave their loved ones a good bye.

It is all my fault

Could I not try?

To save my own nation

Who cannot even differentiate between simple truths and lies.

Looking at the fate of my country

I´m still mesmerized

But in my heart I know that whoever goes down

Can rise again and reach the sky.

I´m in my room wondering why

These innocent people deserved to die.

Are we wrong about Pakistan?

Written By: Peter Oborne.

It was my first evening in Pakistan. My hosts, a Lahore banker and his charming wife, wanted to show me the sights, so they took me to a restaurant on the roof of a town house in the Old City.
My food was delicious, the conversation sparky – and from our vantage point we enjoyed a perfect view of the Badshahi Mosque, which was commissioned by the emperor Aurangzeb in 1671.

It was my first inkling of a problem. I had been dispatched to write a report reflecting the common perception that Pakistan is one of the most backward and savage countries in the world. This attitude has been hard-wired into Western reporting for years and is best summed up by the writing of the iconic journalist Christopher Hitchens. Shortly before he died last December, Hitchens wrote a piece in Vanity Fair that bordered on racism.

Pakistan, he said, was “humourless, paranoid, insecure, eager to take offence and suffering from self-righteousness, self-pity and self-hatred”. In summary, asserted Hitchens, Pakistan was one of the “vilest and most dangerous regions on Earth”.

Since my first night in that Lahore restaurant I have travelled through most of Pakistan, got to know its cities, its remote rural regions and even parts of the lawless north. Of course there is some truth in Hitchens’s brash assertions. Since 2006 alone, more than 14,000 Pakistani civilians have been killed in terrorist attacks. The Pakistan political elite is corrupt, self-serving, hypocritical and cowardly – as Pakistanis themselves are well aware. And a cruel intolerance is entering public discourse, as the appalling murder last year of minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti after he spoke out for Christians so graphically proves. Parts of the country have become impassable except at risk of kidnap or attack.

Yet the reality is far more complex. Indeed, the Pakistan that is barely documented in the West – and that I have come to know and love – is a wonderful, warm and fabulously hospitable country. And every writer who (unlike Hitchens), has ventured out of the prism of received opinion and the suffocating five-star hotels, has ended up celebrating rather than denigrating Pakistan.

A paradox is at work. Pakistan regularly experiences unspeakable tragedy. The most recent suicide bombing, in a busy market in northwestern Pakistan, claimed 32 lives and came only a month after another bomb blast killed at least 35 people in the Khyber tribal district on January 10. But suffering can also release something inside the human spirit. During my extensive travels through this country, I have met people of truly amazing moral stature.

Take Seema Aziz, 59, whom I met at another Lahore dinner party, and who refuses to conform to the Western stereotype of the downtrodden Pakistani female. Like so many Pakistanis, she married young: her husband worked as a manager at an ICI chemical plant. When her three children reached school age, she found herself with lots of time on her hands. And then something struck her.

It was the mid-Eighties, a time when Pakistan seemed captivated by Western fashion. All middle-class young people seemed to be playing pop music, drinking Pepsi and wearing jeans. So together with her family, Seema decided to set up a shop selling only locally manufactured fabrics and clothes.

The business, named Bareeze, did well. Then, in 1988, parts of Pakistan were struck by devastating floods, causing widespread damage and loss of life, including in the village where many of the fabrics sold by Bareeze were made. Seema set out to the flood damaged area to help. Upon arrival, she reached an unexpected conclusion. “We saw that the victims would be able to rebuild their homes quite easily but we noticed that there was no school. Without education, we believed that there would be no chance for the villagers, that they would have no future and no hope.”

So Seema set about collecting donations to build a village school. This was the beginning of the Care Foundation, which today educates 155,000 underprivileged children a year in and around Lahore, within 225 schools.

I have visited some of these establishments and they have superb discipline and wonderful teaching – all of them are co-educational. The contrast with the schools provided by the government, with poorly-motivated teachers and lousy equipment, is stark. One mullah did take exception to the mixed education at one of the local schools, claiming it was contrary to Islamic law. Seema responded by announcing that she would close down the school. The following day, she found herself petitioned by hundreds of parents, pleading with her to keep it open. She complied. Already Care has provided opportunities for millions of girls and boys from poor backgrounds, who have reached adulthood as surgeons, teachers and business people.

I got the sense that her project, though already huge, was just in its infancy. Seema told me: “Our systems are now in place so that we can educate up to one million children a year.” With a population of over 170 million, even one million makes a relatively small difference in Pakistan. Nevertheless, the work of Care suggests how easy it would be to transform Pakistan from a relatively backward nation into a south-east Asian powerhouse.

Certainly, it is a country scarred by cynicism and corruption, where rich men do not hesitate to steal from the poor, and where natural events such as earthquakes and floods can bring about limitless human suffering. But the people show a resilience that is utterly humbling in the face of these disasters.

In the wake of the floods of 2009 I travelled deep into the Punjab to the village of Bhangar to gauge the extent of the tragedy. Just a few weeks earlier everything had been washed away by eight-feet deep waters. Walking into this ruined village I saw a well-built man, naked to the waist, stirring a gigantic pot. He told me that his name was Khalifa and that he was preparing a rice dinner for the hundred or more survivors of the floods.

The following morning I came across Khalifa, once again naked to the waist and sweating heavily. Pools of stagnant water lay around. This time he was hard at work with a shovel, hacking out a new path into the village to replace the one that had been washed away.

A little later that morning I went to the cemetery to witness the burial of a baby girl who had died of a gastric complaint during the night. And there was Khalifa at work, this time as a grave digger.

Khalifa was a day labourer who was lucky to earn $2 (£1.26) a day at the best of times. To prejudiced Western commentators, he may have appeared a symbol of poverty, bigotry and oppression. In reality, like the courageous volunteers I met working at an ambulance centre in Karachi last year, a city notorious for its gangland violence, he represents the indomitable spirit of the Pakistani people, even when confronted with a scale of adversity that would overpower most people in the West.

As I’ve discovered, this endurance expresses itself in almost every part of life. Consider the Pakistan cricket team which was humiliated beyond endurance after the News of the World revelations about “spot-fixing” during the England tour of 2010. Yet, with the culprits punished, a new captain, Misbah-ul-Haq has engineered a revival. In January I flew to Dubai to witness his team humiliate England in a three-match series that marked a fairy-tale triumph.

Beyond that there is the sheer beauty of the country. Contrary to popular opinion, much of Pakistan is perfectly safe to visit so long as elementary precautions are taken, and, where necessary, a reliable local guide secured. I have made many friends here, and they live normal, fulfilled family lives. Indeed there is no reason at all why foreigners should not holiday in some of Pakistan’s amazing holiday locations, made all the better by the almost complete absence of Western tourists.

Take Gilgit-Baltistan in the north, where three of the world’s greatest mountain ranges – the Hindu Kush, the Himalayas and the Karakorams — meet. This area, easily accessible by plane from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, is a paradise for climbers, hikers, fishermen and botanists. K2 – the world’s second-highest mountain – is in Gilgit, as are some of the largest glaciers outside the polar regions.

Go to Shandur, 12,000ft above sea level, which every year hosts a grand polo tournament between the Gilgit and Chitral polo teams in a windswept ground flanked by massive mountain ranges. Or travel south to Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, cradle of the Indus Valley civilisation which generated the world’s first urban culture, parallel with Egypt and ancient Sumer, approximately 5,000 years ago.

Of course, some areas of Pakistan are dangerous. A profile of Karachi – Pakistan’s largest city and commercial capital – in Time magazine earlier this year revealed that more than 1,000 people died in 2011 in street battles fought between heavily armed supporters of the city’s main political parties. Karachi is plagued by armed robbery, kidnapping and murder and, in November last year, was ranked 216 out of 221 cities in a personal-safety survey carried out by the financial services firm Mercer.

But isn’t it time we acknowledged our own responsibility for some of this chaos? In recent years, the Nato occupation of Afghanistan has dragged Pakistan towards civil war. Consider this: suicide bombings were unknown in Pakistan before Osama bin Laden’s attack on the Twin Towers in September 2001. Immediately afterwards, President Bush rang President Musharraf and threatened to “bomb Pakistan into the stone age” if Musharraf refused to co-operate in the so-called War on Terror.
The Pakistani leader complied, but at a terrible cost. Effectively the United States president was asking him to condemn his country to civil war by authorising attacks on Pashtun tribes who were sympathetic to the Afghan Taliban. The consequences did not take long, with the first suicide strike just six weeks later, on October 28.

Many write of how dangerous Pakistan has become. More remarkable, by far, is how safe it remains, thanks to the strength and good humour of its people. The image of the average Pakistani citizen as a religious fanatic or a terrorist is simply a libel, the result of ignorance and prejudice.

The prejudice against Pakistan dates back to before 9/11. It is summed up best by the England cricketer Ian Botham’s notorious comment that “Pakistan is the sort of place every man should send his mother-in-law to, for a month, all expenses paid”. Some years after Botham’s outburst, the Daily Mirror had the inspired idea of sending Botham’s mother-in-law Jan Waller to Pakistan – all expenses paid – to see what she made of the country.

Unlike her son-in-law, Mrs Waller had the evidence of her eyes before her: “The country and its people have absolutely blown me away,” said the 68-year-old grandmother.

After a trip round Lahore’s old town she said: “I could not have imagined seeing some of the sights I have seen today. They were indefinable and left me feeling totally humbled and totally privileged.” She concluded: “All I would say is: ‘Mothers-in-law of the world, unite and go to Pakistan. Because you’ll love it’. Honestly!”

Mrs Waller is telling the truth. And if you don’t believe me, please visit and find out for yourself.

The Man who could bring you back from the Dead

Sam Parnia MD has a highly sought after medical speciality: resurrection. His patients can be dead for several hours before they are restored to their former selves, with decades of life ahead of them.

Parnia is head of intensive care at the Stony Brook University Hospital in New York. If you'd had a cardiac arrest at Parnia's hospital last year and undergone resuscitation, you would have had a 33% chance of being brought back from death. In an average American hospital, that figure would have fallen to 16% and (though the data is patchy) roughly the same, or less, if your heart were to have stopped beating in a British hospital.

By a conservative extrapolation, Parnia believes the relatively cheap and straightforward methods he uses to restore vital processes could save up to 40,000 American lives a year and maybe 10,000 British ones. Not surprisingly Parnia, who was trained in the UK and moved to the US in 2005, is frustrated that the medical establishment seems slow and reluctant to listen to these figures. He has written a book in the hope of spreading the word.

The Lazarus Effect is nothing short of an attempt to recast our understanding of death, based on Parnia's intimate knowledge of the newly porous nature of the previously "undiscovered country from which no traveller returns". His work in resuscitation has led him logically to wider questions of what constitutes being and not being. In particular, he asks what exactly happens, if you are lying dead before resuscitation, to your individual self and all its attendant character and memories – your "soul", as he is not shy to call it – before it is eventually restored to you a few hours later?

When I meet Parnia, he is not long off the plane from New York after a night flight with his wife and baby daughter, and the particular revival he is craving is the miracle of strong coffee. He is both forthright and softly spoken, full of careful zeal for his findings. As I sit across the table from him, he can make even the most extraordinary claim seem calmly rational. "It is my belief," he says, "that anyone who dies of a cause that is reversible should not really die any more. That is: every heart attack victim should no longer die. I have to be careful when I state that because people will say, 'My husband has died recently and you are saying that need not have happened'. But the fact is heart attacks themselves are quite easily managed. If you can manage the process of death properly then you go in, take out the clot, put a stent in, the heart will function in most cases. And the same with infections, pneumonia or whatever. People who don't respond to antibiotics in time, we could keep them there for a while longer [after they had died] until they did respond."

Parnia's belief is backed up by his experience at the margin of life and death in intensive care units for the past two decades – he did his training at Guy's and St Thomas' in London – and particularly in the past five years or so when most of the advances in resuscitation have occurred. Those advances – most notably the drastic cooling of the corpse to slow neuronal deterioration and the monitoring and maintenance of oxygen levels to the brain – have not yet become accepted possibilities in the medical profession. Parnia is on a mission to change that.

The one thing that is certain about all of our lives, he says, is that we will all eventually experience a cardiac arrest. All our hearts will stop beating. What happens in the minutes and hours after that will potentially be the most significant moments of our biography. At present, the likelihood is, however, that in those crucial moments we will find ourselves in the medical environment of the 1960s or 1970s.

The kind of CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) that we are familiar with from medical dramas – the frenzied pumping of the chest – remains rooted, Parnia claims, in its serendipitous discovery in 1960. It remains a haphazard kind of procedure, often performed more in hope than anticipation. Partly, this is a question of personnel. Parnia is quietly maddened by the worldwide hospital habit, in the event of death, to send the most junior of doctors along "to have a go at CPR". It is as if hospital staff have given up before they have started.

"Most doctors will do CPR for 20 minutes and then stop," he says. "The decision to stop is completely arbitrary but it is based on an instinct that after that time brain damage is very likely and you don't want to bring people back into a persistent vegetative state. But if you understand all the things that are going on in the brain in those minutes – as we now can – then you can minimise that possibility. There are numerous studies that show that if you implement all the various resuscitation steps together you not only get a doubling of your survival rates but the people who come back are not brain damaged."

In Parnia's ideal world, the way that people are resuscitated would first take in the knowledge that machines are much better at CPR than doctors. After that, he suggests, the next step is "to understand that you need to elevate the level of care". The first thing is to cool down the body to best preserve the brain cells, which are by then in the process of apoptosis, or suicide.

At the same time, it is necessary to keep up the level of oxygen in the blood. In Japan, this is already standard practice in emergency rooms. Using a technique called an ECMO, the blood of the deceased is siphoned out of the body, put through a membrane oxygenator and pumped round again. This buys the time needed to fix the underlying problem that caused the person to die in the first place. If the level of oxygen to the brain falls below 45% of normal the heart will not restart, Parnia's research shows. Anything above that and there is a good chance.

Potentially, by this means, dead time can be extended to hours and there are still positive outcomes. "The longest I know of is a Japanese girl I mention in the book," Parnia says. "She had been dead for more than three hours. And she was resuscitated for six hours. Afterwards, she returned to life perfectly fine and has, I have been told, recently had a baby."

It was a truncated version of this process, at the London Chest Hospital, that allowed the Bolton footballer Fabrice Muamba to be restored to life after he collapsed on the pitch at White Hart Lane last year. Parnia watched the events unfold on TV and subsequently kept on reading that Muamba had been, for up to an hour, "dead" – but always in quotation marks. He laughs. "Journalists have invented a new term, 'clinically dead'. I don't know what that term means. But the fact is Muamba was dead. And it was not by a miracle he was brought back to life, it was by science."

One of the stranger things you realise in reading Parnia's book is the idea that we might be in thrall to historical perceptions of life and death and that these ultimate constants have lately become vaguer than most of us would allow. The other strand of Parnia's research, in which he leads a team at Southampton University, is into what most people tend to call "near-death experiences" and what he calls "actual death experiences". Parnia has talked to many people about what they recall experiencing while they were dead in his intensive care unit. About half claim to have clear recollections, many of which involve looking down on the surgical team at work on their body or the familiar image of a bright threshold or tunnel of light into which they were being drawn. Parnia has been collecting detailed accounts of these experiences for four years. I ask what conclusions he has drawn.

He suggests he is agnostic about the source of these subjective memories, as he is about questions of mind and matter. "When I first got interested in these mind/body questions, I was astonished to find that no one had even begun to put forward a theory about exactly how neurons in the brain can generate thoughts," he says. "We always assume that all scientists believe the brain produces the mind, but in fact there are plenty who are not certain of that. Even prominent neuroscientists, such as Sir John Eccles, a Nobel prizewinner, believe that we are never going to understand mind through neuronal activity. All I can say is what I have observed from my work. It seems that when consciousness shuts down in death, psyche, or soul – by which I don't mean ghosts, I mean your individual self – persists for a least those hours before you are resuscitated. From which we might justifiably begin to conclude that the brain is acting as an intermediary to manifest your idea of soul or self but it may not be the source or originator of it… I think that the evidence is beginning to suggest that we should keep open our minds to the possibility that memory, while obviously a scientific entity of some kind – I'm not saying it is magic or anything like that – is not neuronal."

Does he have a religious faith?

"No," he says, "and I don't have any religious way into this. But what I do know is that every area of inquiry that used to be tackled by religion or philosophy is now tackled and explained by science. One of the last things to be looked at in this way is the question of what happens when we die. This science of resuscitation allows us to look at that for the first time."

While those more esoteric studies go on, Parnia wants to ensure that more and more people are successfully returned from death to tell whatever tales they can. "I still have colleagues in ICU who say, 'I don't know why we are doing all this stuff'," he says. "Not long ago, I went for a job interview in New York at a teaching hospital and I was told if a patient comes in and has a cardiac arrest and they end up in the cardiac care unit they will be cooled, but if they end up in the intensive care unit the doctor in charge doesn't believe in it. He thinks it blocks his beds so he won't do it. I don't see this as negligence exactly because there is, as yet, no authority telling us this is the standard we should use. But surely there should be." All of this, I say, must have had a powerful bearing on Parnia's own sense of mortality. Is he comforted or made paranoid by his work?

He suggests that the experience of talking to people who have returned from dying serves only to enhance his curiosity about the process they have undergone, and which he has sometimes helped to reverse. Other than that, he says: "In ICU, I see people dying every day and each time it happens a part of you thinks, one day this will be me. There will be people huddling round my bed deciding whether or not to resuscitate and I know one thing for sure: I don't want it just down to pot luck whether I end up brain damaged or even alive."

WHAT IS ECMO?

During cardiac arrest, blood cannot carry oxygen to the brain, causing brain cells to decay irreparably, making recovery uncertain. CPR, in which circulation is manually stimulated to delay brain damage, has long been considered the last chance for patients. With ECMO, however, those same patients can be brought back from the brink and kept alive while doctors work towards diagnosis and treatment, making CPR seem primitive by comparison. This hi-tech method of resuscitation is known as ECPR and could mark a revolution in medical practice if adopted by hospitals worldwide.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

An extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine (ECMO) is an advanced life-support apparatus. Two catheter needles are inserted, one into a major vein and one into a major artery, allowing a synthetic pump to begin drawing blood out of the body, circulating it through the apparatus, before returning it to the bloodstream. The blood passes through a membrane oxygenator, in which oxygen is introduced and carbon dioxide removed, much like the exchange of gases that takes place in the lungs. Some ECMO machines also include a heat exchanger, which can cool or warm the blood according to the patient's condition.

A dedicated team is required to place a patient on ECMO but, once that patient is stabilised, the machine can be supervised by specially trained nurses and can maintain stability for sustained periods. This allows the patient to live without a functioning cardiopulmonary system for days or even weeks, giving diseased organs a valuable holiday in which to recover.

WHEN IS IT USED?

Until recently, it has been used largely for severe lung failure in babies. In the UK, it is principally thought of as an intensive care treatment used in the ward, but more and more US hospitals are adding ECPR to their emergency treatment options. In an emergency, when a patient has shown no return of spontaneous circulation after conventional CPR, a doctor would decide whether the patient merits being attached to an ECMO machine, which must be carried out in a matter of minutes. Emergency ECMO is therefore administered as a last resort to patients who stand a good chance of full recovery.

In these conditions, it can be very effective and patients who have been medically dead for hours have been resuscitated successfully through ECMO, which can restart the heartbeat through steady pressure and blood flow. Even after full cardiac arrest, in situations where cell decay and brain damage have been avoided, ECMO has proved a lifesaver. There are four ECMO centres in the UK. Europe's largest centre and the only one in the UK that treats adults is the Glenfield hospital in Leicester.