Okay this is going to be a long status. It all started a year ago, when Anum shared her idea to start a project which focused on healthy life style through self expression. It was her project under another international initiative which ended in July 2015 but we decided to continue the project.
For me, it was a chance to do something I always wanted to do! Meet new people and get to know about their struggles and and share these stories through some platform which can inspire others to do the same. I believe we don't appreciate each other enough. We all know people who have achieved something and its not about making to some top position or being the founder of any initiative, everyone of us struggles and strive to achieve our goals. But as a society/nation, we don't appreciate each other or our heroes, we prefer to find something negative about their personal or professional lives , just to bring them down.
MVU is not an effort to present you all with an absolutely positive and imaginary view of Pakistan. I'm and I should be critical of whatever wrong is happening in this country. Admission is the first step towards finding the solution but at the same time it is important to appreciate and support those people who have done some great work and continue to work harder to bring positive change. It can be a business, social enterprise or a simple laborer - they all have to play an important part in this regard. MVU is celebration of their journey, struggle, and success.
I have been lucky enough to meet, talk and listen to some of these people which was a learning experience in itself. The response has been equally great, and people have enjoyed reading about them and some of them got additional support in their initiatives due to the stories. Today people are sending us their stories and that's what our impact assessment is! We cannot find out every story on our own, we would love to hear from people, listen and feature their stories.
This all was not possible with the group of people who I call my team. First of all, Anum , thank you for giving me the opportunity to be part of it. Thank you for listening and keeping me on track and of course giving this all structure through your long emails and SOPs. You are an excellent Co Founder and the amazing working relationship has only helped us grow.
Secondly to Fatima, a big thank you for being the first person to believe in this idea, you have always managed the MVU workload despite your own hectic job. You have developed the excellent style of writing which is being now appreciated by other readers. You are always reliable, innovative and passionate about MVU. This all would have never been possible without you.
I have been working with Talha for the last 4 years now and it has been a great experience. He has never said no to anything and always gets back to me even if it takes long nights. He gave us the designs, the logo, the colours, the website and above all the idea & development of our App (yes I know, a spoiler). He is always ready to take on new challenges and I have always appreciated this thing about this young fellow.
As we were able to develop some kind of structure, I invited my good friend Shama to join us and she has been there with us. Despite her busy professional and personal life, she always manages time to write for us on some really important topics. Thank you for the guidance and support.
A very important and valuable addition to our MVU family was Mohsin. He has been working with me for the last two years on different projects and has been a very reliable and sincere person. He is always there whenever I need him and owns MVU like anything. He is always coming up with new ideas and the video below is also a result of his creativity. His passion and honestly are admirable.
Minahil joined us in the second half of the year but has grown into a very important part of the team. She is the grammar nazi of our team and I'm sure she must have found more than half a dozen mistakes already in this status as well. But her editing skills make everything better and mistake free. So we will continue sending our stuff your way so you can keep correcting us.
Eilaf, Aqsa and Ghazala complete our small MVU family. Eilaf has been handling social media and keeps bringing into our notice the stories of interesting people who we then feature. Aqsa is into research and video making and her skills continue to improve with every new project. Ghazala is writing for our research based profiles where we pay tribute to our national heroes.
I don't have enough words to thank you all in helping this cause grow and doing the amazing work. I can only say that together we all will grow into something amazing IA.
To all friends who have believed in this effort, encouraged and supported us in all ways possible - thank you and I love you all. You have been there whenever I needed you and your unconditional support has been a big source of motivation.
A big shout out to all the talented individuals we have featured so far. You continue to inspire us.
To many more stories and many more years. Happy Birthday MVU!
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