Aamina Sheikh joins hands with PAGE as global ambassador
Last seen on the big screen in Asim Abbasi’s critically and commercially acclaimed Cake (March 30) that represented Pakistan on various global fronts, Aamina Sheikh is again in the limelight for all the right reasons. The actor, who played the lead role alongside Asif Raza Mir in Nibah that concluded earlier this year, has become a global brand ambassador of PAGE – Pakistan Alliance for Girls Education.
She announced it on her social media accounts earlier this week. Aamina shared that she is honoured to join hands with the organization and is committed to achieving gender equality and gender equity in education across Pakistan.
Instep got in touch with the actor to know about her plans and what inspired her to come on board for the cause. She informed that she was approached for the role of global ambassador for girls’ education sometime in May while she was promoting Cake across the globe. She went through the statistics, did her research and accepted the offer.
“It really kind of hit home,” Aamina told Instep over a telephonic conversation. “I understood one ground reality and it made me align with it. They feel that the kind of work I’ve done in my career has been impactful in terms of girl empowerment, like giving voice through my characters, so it aligned very well to the whole theme.”
“Personally as well, being a mother of a girl child, these issues are a lot more in my vision now,” she continued. “And I think it’s also time; once you reach a certain point in your career and in your life, it is important to take on things which are more than your own self and make an impact.
The kind of voice we have as actors, as public figures, we have that influence and a connection with our audience. So why not use that for a higher purpose? It totally makes sense to be an ambassador of change.”
To understand what the idea is and how it came into shape, let’s have a look at how it materialized in the first place. United Nations has a campaign called ‘Educate a Child’ and their mission is to educate 10 million children around the world out of which one million fall in Pakistan. PAGE has come together to focus on educating those 1 million out-of-school children in a span of three years approximately.
Reflecting on the state of education and schooling in Pakistan, Aamina informed, “The situation in Pakistan is very unique in the sense that the percentage of out-of-school girls is far greater than that of boys because of cultural and misinterpreted religious reasons. Girls are not allowed to go to school in a lot of areas and if they are, they are taken out of it very early to get them married off and things like that.”
Hence, PAGE is focusing more on girls to first bring the statistics to some sort of balance and fill the gap. And to achieve that purpose, it is building schools in areas where there are no schools. PAGE will engage the community around that school in the process to make sure that the school is being run consistently and in an efficient way.
When asked in what ways she will be contributing to the cause, Aamina explained, “I’ll be advocating it on whichever platforms and opportunities I get. I will talk about it and will be a part of fundraisers in this regard. The idea is to attract more people towards it, using my influence.
Secondly, given my profession and my interests such as production, acting, etc., I want to contribute in elevating the narratives and the stories told by media. That could be through drama serials, through online content, through films.
I would want to work on stories that I find in these experiences with girls. The aim is to find those unique stories, to use them as inspiration in scripts, to produce and act in them and, while doing that, bring the cause to the forefront. I am feeling strongly about it and that I ought to be responsible for this.”
As part of the initiative, three Star Schools have recently been opened in Gilgit (Ishpitaas, Sharothingi, Harpoon) while four in Islamabad. Being the global brand ambassador of PAGE, Aamina, along with her daughter Meissa, spent her recent birthday (August 29) with young girls enrolled in the Star Schools to inculcate the concepts of self respect and self worth in them.
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