Ramadan as a School of Power:
How Young Leaders Are Rewriting What Service Means in Pakistan
“When we first came, we didn’t know anyone,” said Jaskaran Malhotra in Mardan. “We were guided with such kindness… We sat in mixed groups, Sikh with Muslim, Hindu with Christian, and had open conversations. Each of us shared our struggles. Then we formed a group and even talked about potential solutions.– (Mardan, Interfaith Iftar)
What looked like a dinner was actually a leadership practicum. Two people at a time, 10 minutes each, swapping roles; then the room reconvened to map what they heard; youth employment, public space, safety on the walk home. A circle of strangers became a coalition with a first next step.
For SFY, Ramadan is a month-long classroom where compassion is given form. The Ramadan Drive is our 30-day, three-phase curriculum designed to decrease power disparities by training leaders, especially young people, to practice the habits that generate grassroots power: listening, organizing, coalitionbuilding, logistics, and ethical operations. This is our vision in motion: “SFY envisions decreasing power disparities and achieving shared goals by generating grassroots power through collective action by community leaders, fostering participatory praxis, guided by indigenous leadership in Pakistan.Now, the Drive has expanded to three cities, includes participants from four religious communities, and engaged more than a dozen local institutions. “
Interfaith participants ranged from 20–50 years, with a majority under 30; from madrasas and secular universities, from civic groups, professions, and public institutions. They did not merely “volunteer.” They practiced a way of leading.
And while Ramadan’s heart is devotion and care, power grows from structure. That is why the Drive unfolds in three phases; each a different way to learn how love becomes organized.
Phase 1: Food Ration Packages (Days 1-10)
Values: lived, not listed
Across SFY sites, Phase 1 often begins with a brief huddle. Leaders remind each other that this is community building, not just supply movement. Relational power is practiced at the door: knock softly, step back, ask before entering, listen without extracting. Intentional diversity is visible in the room, madrasa students and university volunteers working at the same table, a shopkeeper who donated flour logging distribution numbers beside a college student. And Capacity development is a standing rule: every task has a teacher and a learner; every shift ends with, “What should we improve tomorrow?” It’s not charity; it’s culture.
Skills: human, not mechanical
In the first hours, a newcomer usually carries cartons; by Day 3, that person is asking how the packing line is balanced. A shift lead sketches stations on cardboard, explains why dates are added last (“so nothing crushes them”), and points to the weightcheck. Another volunteer learns to call vendors and compare quotes; a third reconciles tallies after distribution; no one leaves until numbers match. When rain threatens, the team reroutes vehicles, lays a tarp line, and moves the registration desk closer to the exit. These are lived competencies: procurement that respects quality and price; inventory that reduces loss; queue design that preserves elders’ time; safeguarding that doesn’t frighten children; reflection that turns a mistake into tomorrow’s improvement. By Day 10, a firsttimer can explain why oil is stored off the floor and how a short queue script lowers stress.
The ethic carries forward. As Mr Farukh reflected in Nankana:
“Living here in Pakistan, where we come from so many cultures and religions, we already share our traditions… For our problems, we should sit together at one table, talk, and find solutions.”– (Nankana Interfaith)
That sentence could be Phase 1’s blueprint as much as Phase 2’s.
Phase 2: Interfaith Iftar & Relational Meetings (Days 11-20)
Values: in motion
At the door, volunteers greet by name if they can and ask about preferred seating; interfaith respect starts with small courtesies. In the circle, a facilitator invites pairs to exchange stories, not positions. Institutional alliances are literal: mosque representatives beside church youth; a gurdwara committee member swapping insights with a publicschool teacher. “We build coalitions before the crisis,” one coordinator likes to say, “so we don’t meet for the first time in the middle of one.” Relational power is the method: persuasion through story and active listening. Intentional diversity is engineered through pairing, ensuring people cross their usual social lanes.
The participants’ words tell the rest:
Ibad (Mardan): “People from different religions, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians, participated. We had open discussion, including oneonone conversations… It was a mutual exchange, and overall, the meetings were very successful.”
Preetam Raj (Mardan): “We sat together and talked about our communities. Those who had misunderstandings about our religion, their mindsets changed in a positive direction. Many issues can be resolved like this: you listen to me, and I listen to you.”
Muhammad Iqbal (Mardan): “Since childhood, it was my wish to meet members of different communities and learn. Today, I finally got that opportunity.”
Abdul Aziz (Mardan): “We grew up without chances to meet minorities… In today’s interfaith Iftari, we had productive 1:1 discussions, learning about each other’s religions, celebrations, holy days. Very knowledgeable.”
Gurwinder (Nankana): “We asked ourselves: are these problems unique to our community? We realized they’re shared. We can work together to find solutions.”
Abdul Rehman (Nankana): “We discussed topics we don’t usually get to in daily life… I hope these opportunities keep coming, so we can keep building a truly excellent society.”
Sameer Asif (Nankana): “People from diverse communities proposed truly wonderful suggestions. These sessions should happen more often to maintain harmony.”
Sukhdeep (Nankana): “One on ones helped me raise a problem and even find a solution. I realized others face similar challenges.”
Skills; grown in the room
Leaders walk newcomers through the flow: welcome, ground rules, first 10minute interview, switch, and back to plenary. Time is kept with a raised hand, not a loud interruption. A “harvester” gathers themes on chart paper, public space, youth employment, safe transit, and asks, “How significant is it that we all come from different faiths and yet share the same issues?” This is facilitation as practice: equalizing talk time, turning heat into light, refraining from blame to shared interests, and leaving the room with one real next step. As Jaskaran put it, the point is not only to speak honestly about religious challenges; it’s to “talk about potential solutions.”
Phase 3: Gifts & Eid Celebration (Days 21-30)
Values; visible on the floor
On event day, the safeguarding table is ready: consent bracelets at the entrance (green for “OK to photograph,” red for “no”), a quiet corner with coloring pages, and firstaid checked. Praxis is everywhere: small note cards taped to stations; “Try this,” “Watch out for that,” “If the line slows, do this.” Community building looks like decor and runofshow tuned to children’s wonder: a short poem, a handoff to crafts, two short announcements, then gifts. Critical consciousness is the planning question: “What would celebration feel like if the child you love were here?” This is the kind of affection-praxis our leaders bring to Orphan and under-resourced kids across multiple cities.
Skills; earned through care
Leaders who handled rice in Week 1 now handle microphones in Week 3. A different logistics emerges: agebanded gift bundles, safe wrapping, crowd awareness, a breezy flow that keeps children at ease. Volunteers protect caregivers’ time: “The activity is 15 minutes; promise.” Media teams angle respectfully and always ask. When the storyteller is delayed by traffic, the team promotes the second activity and nobody notices the adjustment. The debrief logs one tweak: “Move the craft table nearer the exit; it kept children calmer and smoothed the line.” Joy becomes a standard you can teach.
From Compassion to Capability
Most service projects end at distribution. Ours begins there.
Because every value is embodied in a real task, leaders don’t just feel differently; they do differently the next time.
- Competence that travels. A volunteer who learns to balance a packing line later balances roles in a dialogue; a leader who manages consent bracelets can manage vendor contracts; both are exercises in clarifying expectations and preventing harm.
- Relational maps that persist. Households, donors, vendors, imams, pastors, teachers; people remain in contact because relationships were built intentionally, not incidentally. Those maps are the material of grassroots power.
- Consciousness that iterates. The end-of-shift reflection, “What was dignified? What caused friction? What’s one fix?”, is the software update. Compounded over 30 days, it becomes a culture.
- Collective action made ordinary. Schedules, roles, escalation paths, and debriefs demonstrate that dignity must be organized. When teenagers and professionals execute a safe, twohour Eid program together, they internalize a hardtounlearn habit: we can do complicated things.
- Alliances as quiet infrastructure. In three cities, across four religious communities, with more than a dozen institutions, the Drive builds the reflex to call each other before an issue becomes a grievance. That alone saves months of drift.
The participants themselves testify to the conversion of care into capability. As Ibad put it, “It was a mutual exchange… very successful.” Preetam Raj noticed mindsets change the moment “you listen to me, and I listen to you.” Gurwinder named the core civic discovery: the problems were shared, and so were the solutions. That realization is the threshold of power.
Why It Matters Beyond Ramadan
The Ramadan Drive is not a seasonal charity operation. It is a leadership pipeline.
When young people learn to identify needs without shaming, build coalitions across difference, design operations that protect dignity, and close the day with reflection, they carry those habits into the rest of the year; school committees, neighborhood councils, campus groups, workplaces. They become the kind of leaders who reduce power disparities not with slogans but with systems; not by demanding trust but by earning it, one reliable commitment at a time.
If we can build communities of care for 30 days, we can sustain them for 365. If we can train leaders through service during Ramadan, we can prepare them to confront inequality, disconnection, and division all year.
This is how disparities shrink: ordinary people learning to serve, to listen, to organize, and to lead; together.
Closing Call; Giving Radical Hope: Form
The ration shelves will empty, the interfaith circles will adjourn, the Eid laughter will soften into ordinary days. What remains are networks, habits, and leaders; stronger, calmer, more precise.
If Pakistan is to move toward justice and shared thriving, it will be because we invested in leaders who learned, in Ramadan, that compassion without structure is fleeting; and that structure without compassion is brittle. We trained them to combine both.
Ramadan gives us the heart.
SFY gives it form.
Together, they give us hope.
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About SFY
Society For Youth (SFY) is a non-profit organization committed to fostering sustainable community development through grassroots organizing, education, and empowering local leadership. SFY’s broad-based model emphasizes relationality and collective action, working to address complex social challenges and build resilient communities from within.
To learn more about our work, donate, or support our mission, please feel free to reach out to us via info@society4youth.org.