From fun games to sporting challenges and food, the family gathering hosted
by Pakistan Engineers Forum had something for everyone to cheer about
By Umer Nangiana
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Offering healthy activities from fun games to sport challenges complimented with traditional Pakistani style BBQ delicacies, it was a complete fun day out for everyone in the family.
With inflatable games area to take care of the children, the elders joyfully participated in the racing competitions and ball matches. And the winners were awarded with attractive prizes.
Continuing with its tradition of providing at least one such event in a year, Pakistan Engineers Forum (PEF) organised this Family Day for the families of its members at Pak Shamaa School, Wakrah campus, on Friday.
More than a hundred people participated in the event. For them it turned out to be a perfect Friday outing. “I enjoyed it a lot. It was a lovely community gathering and I think all the forums have to do such kind of healthy activities to keep the community together,” said Rashid Nizam, the Community Welfare Attache at Pakistan Embassy, Qatar.
He congratulated Pakistan Engineers Forum on organising the family gala. President of PEF, Asfandyar Ansari, told Community that the event was organised in continuation of the forum’s tradition.
“We always organise events for engineers but we always feel that there is always room for inviting the families of the engineers as well. So once in our tenures, we always organise one family gathering. This was part of that initiative that we do for the engineers’ families,” said Ansari.
He added that the management of the forum has been working on the preparations for the event for the past few days as it required more than organising a lecture or a conference.
“It is not like organising a lecture for instance. It is not like you invite a speaker and that is it. There have to be a lot of events because children and women they all get involved, so we have to organise all that stuff. We have been working for the past 4-5 weeks for organising this event,” said Ansari.
He was content with the people’s participation. “I think they are pleased. We were expecting more people to come but even then the turnout was good. Our estimate was over 150 and we got 100, so that is not bad,” said the PEF president.
Detailing some of the events, he said the day started off with a basketball match amongst boys, men and women separately. They also held a racing competition outside for everyone. Inside, they had established a fun area for engaging children into different activities and games. “We tried to make sure that everyone from women to children, gets involved,” said Ansari.
The prizes given at the end of the event, Ansari added, were mostly funded and supported by PEF. “We do not get the sort of sponsorship support from the community always especially for the family events. They usually do not do it. They do it for technical events and so on. So we did it mostly from our pockets and there are a few sponsors who helped us in that way,” added Ansari.
He said they have a long list of members but not all of them were active. They now have launched a new website and have asked people to register there so that they know the active members so far. That, however, is in progress.
This was the last event of the current executive committee’s tenure. “We were here for two years and we are finishing our term in December, so may be next year first we will have something in what we have our final programme to hand over the control to the new executive committee,” said Ansari.
The Pakistan Engineers Forum (PEF) was formed in 1997 to represent Pakistani engineers working in Qatar. The idea was to gather all Pakistani engineers on one platform. The founders of the organisation worked out a number of bylaws for its working. Under these bylaws, every second year a new executive committee has been elected who have to run the affairs of the Forum.
Due to their efforts, there are now more than 200 Pakistani engineers who are the members of the Forum. The Forum represents the largest group of Pakistani professionals working in Qatar.
