Welcome to the website for the project, “Conserving Democracy through Culture and Education”, a pioneering collaboration between the Department of Communication & Cultural Studies, NCA and the Heinrich Böll Foundation. The College is looking forward to a productive one year of activities, and hopes that this project will become the basis for similar cutting-edge research and dialogue initiatives in the future.

NCA has been at the forefront of education and research in the arts and culture in Pakistan, and has remained committed not only to innovating in these fields but also to ensuring their relevance to the needs and imperatives of our society. The NCA ethos is based on the view that culture is integrated into the values and way of life of a society, expressing its aspirations and fears, aside from reinforcing our cultural heritage. This project is expected to serve this mission in an academically sound and relevant manner, addressing one of the outstanding issues of our time: the threat to an open, democratic, and tolerant society. To this end, the project seeks to open and employ a space for a rigorous and culturally rooted discourse in Pakistan, involving youth, academicians and leading members of civil society. I am extremely grateful to the Heinrich Böll Foundation- Pakistan/ Afghanistan for partnering with and supporting this undertaking.

This website is a portal to the project, where you can access information about project activities, sign up for student seminars, read papers and articles on relevant issues and learn more about similar projects. We hope you find the project as relevant and innovative as we do, and that you join us through the project to help achieve the project goal of enabling a democratic culture in Pakistan by sensitizing students and policy makers to the role of culture in promoting peace and democracy.

Prof. Naazish Ata-Ullah
Principal
National College of Arts

© National College of Arts, 2008