Joy of Urdu

We registered as a private limited for transparency and to record and monitor expenses, but have functioned COMPLETELY as a volunteer-run and self-funded organisation for the last 10 years.

“Oral traditions and expressions are used to pass on knowledge, cultural and social values and collective memory. 

They play a crucial part in keeping cultures alive.” 

UNESCO

We are losing the beautiful Urdu language. This is something that I became acutely aware of when I went abroad to study, and later, when I could not find resources for myself, or my third culture kid.

I heard from an entire generation of parents facing a similar problem, the lack of appropriate resources, and the fear of this heritage dying away: families not in Diaspora, but living in Pakistan.

It turned out that the majority of Urdu-speaking folk living in South Asia, and around the world were facing the same crisis with the next generation losing fluency in the language, and their parents, like myself, who had already lost the ability to read and had little exposure to understanding the literature.

Further, the literature that was available was not updated to be inclusive, or environmentally conscious. This did not resonate with a new generation of children and adults who end up rejecting the entire language, giving up on trying to read and understand it, because they do not find things like gender equality reflected in the platforms and organisations they try to approach, or books that are available.

Statistics showing effects of bilingualism: 

• Neuro-biological importance of learning different scripts

• Protects against Alzheimer’s and Dementia

Third Culture Kids:

• Transmission of culture

• Identity and adaptability 

• Marketable skills

Current Situation:

• Low readership

• Low quality publications

• Proliferation of Romanized Urdu due to extensive use of social media/ internet/ text

• Problems of perception, status, and esteem due to lack of importance given to the national language

• Attitude of schools 

Joy of Urdu is a bilingual organization promoting Urdu language and literature, by making it accessible. We do this in multiple ways: such as creating bilingual content for our digital platforms, arranging lectures, and establishing a growing list of International Reading Group Chapters.

On our 10th anniversary we published our first bilingual book to great acclaim from language pedagogy experts, teachers, academics, educationists, and Urdu writers and poets.

We plan to monetize this platform to allow for growth and reach, and to launch our app which collates all our educational resources from the past 10 years, in a fun way for kids, and caregivers/ parents, as well as people like myself who only studied "Easy Urdu" in O Levels in Pakistan and had no connection with the rich literary tradition. Our unique approach: using English to promote Urdu has received wide acclaim from a broad cross section of educationists, academics, writers, translators, language pedagogy experts and sociolinguists.

Here is just one video of the many endorsements our new publication has received (in English): https://youtu.be/aeiUk10-blc?feature=shared

Another feedback video (in English):https://youtu.be/PJDb2eDdPA8?feature=shared

TAM

• Pakistanis & Urdu speaking Indians

• Immigrant Pakistanis & Urdu speaking Indians in N. America, UK, UAE, S. Asia, Europe

• Students in foreign language programs

SAM

• Pakistanis & Urdu speaking Indians of a certain educational level, with access to digital media and internet

• Immigrant Pakistanis & Urdu speaking Indians in N. America, UK, UAE, S. Asia, Europe of a certain educational level, and/ or interested in connecting with roots or the language

• Students in foreign language programs interested in connecting with roots or the language

SOM

• Kids (large urban segment in Pakistan):

• Kids (overseas):

• Students in Pakistan:

• Students abroad, entering universities (Pakistanis):

• Adults

• Expats

• Parents of Pakistani/ Urdu background in Pakistan & Globally

We’re one of the organizations that really took off in the pandemic, as people became more introspective, and there was an even greater desire to connect to our roots. We ran a viral social media campaign hashtag Ghar Bethiye Kitabein Parhiye which was even covered by independent Uk. We stopped because we just did NOT have the resources to keep up

Traction: While we had no revenue for 10 years, we have had great traction, with brand recognition and a loyal following. The most extraordinary insight we’ve received from Facebook was the proportion of engagement relative to the largest player in the Urdu eco-system, and in the region: Rekhta. Sure, smaller groups have greater engagement, maybe double even triple at best, but an astounding 83% compared to Rekhta’s 9.6% engagement rates are a testament to the great success of Joy of Urdu’s organic growth.

The Joy of Urdu team has proven its commitmentment to the cause of preservation and promotion of Urdu language and literature over the years. Through its international Chapters, digital content, online sessions with academic luminaries, poets & writers, the audience has grown organically on our digital platforms, where we had an extraordinary level of engagement 83% last summer, compared to 9.6% of the largest player in the ecosystem and in the region. 

Our work has been supported and endorsed by the biggest names in Education, Urdu literature and poetry and our Advisory Board consists of recognized leaders  from different fields.We've proven our ability to deliver quality, to pivot when needed, to make tough calls to stay on target.

• World wide chapters

• Brand recognition

  • Interviews,

  • newspaper articles,

  • inclusion in literary festivals,

  • speaker at various events and educational instututions

  • being rejected by a grant organization, because they thought we were “too big, recognized, and with a great reputation” (!)

• Successfully volunteer-run for 10 years

• Launched bilingual publishing house on 10th anniversary

  • Bilingual book recently launched at the two largest and most prestigious festival in the world dedicated to Urdu language and literature

  • Critical & popular acclaim with endorsements from the biggest names in education, language, literature

• Pre-validation experiment. All our events & lectures have been free in the past. We wanted to see how many people would actually pay and register to attend one of our sessions. The KPI’s in this case were not how much money we could raise, but how many people would pay. We arranged a 30-45 person room at the University of Toronto and by the time we woke up- we had to shut down the registrations since we were overbooked with 135 registrations! We then started getting requests to allow people to pay just to join zoom, although it wasn't logistically possible that day. In fact, in his introduction to the event Dr Joshi, the Director of the MBA Program at the Schulich School (one of our Patrons), said that the level of interest our event had shown was unprecedented in his career (clips of the event can be found on our social media)

• Online social media campaign during lockdown  #GharBethiyeKitabeinParhiye 

  • Picked up by foreign newspaper’s Urdu service

  • 193 videos, 40 cities, 10 countries, youngest 5 year old, oldest retirees, 108 authors represented, celebrities, writers, socially prominent people, including from Bollywood

  • 14 original pieces of writing read by authors

  • We shut it down because we could not keep up with the demand, and wanted to move back to our educational content and lectures

There is a large, untapped market that we would like to reach, and to monetize our content to make the organization, and therefore our mission, sustainable. This is only possible with more resources than we currently have, as the ENTIRE team are volunteers.

We need to become VC ready, and create the technology-driven solution we have successfully been laying the foundation for over the last 10 years.

Our unique approach: using English to promote Urdu has received wide acclaim from a broad cross section of educationists, academics, writers, translators, language pedagogy experts and sociolinguists.This was unheard of, and frowned upon by purists. However, the language was suffering and dying out as people who wanted to learn were excluded not only due to the inaccessibility of the literary form, the lack of opportunity to be exposed to the script, and the usual regressive content that younger people were often exposed to initially.

Joy of Urdu was neither too religious, nor too secular. It was only intolerant of intolerance in its curated book list.

Our campaigns are thus able to reach a much wider audience and able to address a wide range of issues, via the use of language and literature. 

An interesting initiative was the Joy of Urdu PLUS series: live online panel discussions that are inspired by literature, but not necessarily about language or literature. For example we discussed the role of women in television drama serials today compared to a pre-Islamization era Pakistan. We also discussed urban sprawl and organic urban growth after reading a famous Urdu short story about a brothel that is exiled to the outskirts of town, but which becomes the new centre of a new town. The same short story allowed us to explore film making since it was the inspiration for one of the most famous alternate cinema in Bollywood from the 80's.

Thus, our inclusivity and our accessibility allow us to reach a vast new audience,  to explore important topics in a way that reaches a wider audience.

As mentioned earlier, we have received countless endorsements in the form of comments, letters, and feedback videos where our target audience has spoken about how much they have learned from and enjoyed our bilingual content.

Because of our hybrid in-person programs that have been broadcast live for YEARS before the pandemic, with recordings available on our Facebook page, we consistently get requests for new chapters around the world, however, as volunteer-run organisation we can only do so much, so we stagger the opening of new chapters.

Our bilingual book has been acquired by language pedagogy experts, schools, caregivers, and teachers as an effective tool.

Our curated book list is the first of its kind, and we are currently working on publishing it and donating it to institutional libraries around the world.

We expect all this to be multiplied when all our resources are available in a more easily searchable app. 

Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

• The participant members of our target audience have been as young as 5 and as old as in their 80's

Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

• Our entire team are qualified professionals. And except for our Advisor Aleem Zubair, the entire team are women, including the silent director on paper with me. As Founder/CEO I work full time (pro-bono), the rest work in their free time. Most of our Moderators and Chapter Coordinators are also women. 
• We curate our content specifically to address these issues, and highlight them when they are missing. Even within our unique, first-of-its-kind curated book list (ordered by proficiency level and genre) that we distributed for free in the past, we have shared links to articles when certain classical authors are problematic. 
• We have trained our volunteers in gender quality so that they make better choices for the content that is read in our Worldwide Reading Group Chapters, avoiding misogynistic or regressive content.
• Many of the bilingual books in the pipeline are specifically targeted towards women in STEM, and female role models.
• We make it a point to highlight women poets and writers.

We use social media to share and create bilingual educational content. Even before the pandemic, we made sure all our in-person events and lectures were hybrid events. This was because I lived outside Pakistan and wanted to participate, via comments and online questions. 

An app where all of our content more easily searchable, and is professionally edited and consolidated,  is the logical next step. 

Games based on our publications and storytelling sessions for kids are another interactive tool we are trying to develop.

Our first bilingual publication, "Three Tales From Gulistan-e-Saadi", leverages traditional knowledge systems, by presenting traditional tales in a contemporary format.

Our entire team is comprised of qualified professionals: famous English and Urdu writers, poets, artists, and educationists who work as volunteers in their free time.

Except for one, the entire core team are women, including the silent Director on paper with me, as well as most of the moderators and chapter coordinators. I am the only one working full time, but also without a salary,

Joy of Urdu was founded in August 2013, and we have been operating as a volunteer-run organisation around the world since then. (Our Boston Chapter was inaugurated at MIT in the Stella room!).

In the 10th year anniversary of our organisation's existence, we launched Joy of Urdu Bilingual Publications with a book that we worked on for 6 years, to great critical and popular acclaim.

As mentioned, most of the team are women. 

In our 46K+ Facebook group (with a very stringent membership criteria, one of our rules is not to send friend requests to female members, which has resulted in our popularity with women who feel it is a safe space. 

We monitor content to ensure that we remain inclusive.

Our viral lockdown campaign featured a complete hijab/ niqabi, right after someone like Dr. Azra Raza. We truly believe in a woman's right to choose her clothes!

The curated list mentions articles with a different perspective, next to problematic writers for readers to be cognisant of controversial ideas, however we outright ban and boycott some writers for their sectarian-violence-inducing wildly popular novels that feature a deeply persecuted minority in Pakistan.

We regularly feature online sessions that celebrate minority holidays. Something not seen in our eco-system with the level of commitment we have shown.

The project we propose is a series of subscription based & sponsored online sessions, and the development of an app, with in-app purchases, ad revenue for overseas Urdu speaking Indians and Pakistanis (clothes, food, restaurants, spice delivery, wedding planners).

Our Bilingual Publications would be the basis for online games with a community, and mobile games for younger kids.

We have accomplished all this with no grants, revenue or resources. Imagine what we could do with actual money!