Alternate Solutions Institute, Pakistan.
8th Annual Five Day Residential Course August 2017.
The Alternate Solutions Institute (ASI ) in Pakistan recently organised their 8th five day annual residential course ‘Ideas for a Free and Reponsible Society’ at Khanaspur, Ayubia with NFS support. The facilitators were Dr. Raza Ullah, Dr. Khalil Ahmad, Dr. Fayaz Ali Shah and Colonel Sahibzada Anees.
Directed by Dr Raza Ullah ASI promotes the values of a prosperous and responsible society through entrepreneurship and the market economy. Generally the ASI receives between the 200-250 applications for this workshop from which they select 30 -35 graduates and young professionals. They leave the scorching heat of the summer for the scenic hilly summer station Khanaspur in Abbottabad. Fortunately, the internet is usually missing or absent, which helps the participants to interact with each other and with resource persons openly. A training manual is used containing information regarding economics and politics as well as the writings of well-known economists, political scientists, and liberty champions. The organizers are sure to explain the basic concepts of a prosperous and responsible society in the country and expect a pool of potential social actors will develop from the event who could be change agents for the future.
In fact the Khanaspur workshop has developed a network of market economy supporters across the country. The graduates of the camp now work in different capacities mostly in corporate and public sectors in the country. The institute has conducted eight Khanaspur Residential workshop so far with over 300 students having participated in them. In addition it has links with different universities and has created chapters of Students for Entrepreneurship and Economic Reform (SEER) in six of them and more than 1200 young graduates attended their seminars in the last three years.