If you love Pakistan and want to Sing your love out for it, then this competition is JUST FOR YOU!

Show your patriotism and Sing your heart out for Pakistan on yellO. Send us your audio clips as attachment on competition@yello.pk and win a Dinner for two at participating restaurant.

The audio clip of the winner would also be posted on the yellO website and yellO’s fan page on Facebook!

After tantalizing you on the web, yellO is now coming to your home, in the shape of a magazine. You will now be able to catch the best of your city with social comments, restaurant reviews, buy and sell activities and coolest events happening around, in a printed format that you can carry around wherever you go.

The monthly yellO magazine is being launched first in Karachi, with an initial quantity of 10,000 copies.

The first issue is coming out by the end of this month. So keep your fingers crossed. Soon, the magazine will be in your hand.

yellO.pk Founder and Strategy Director interviewed by Jehan Ara, President of the Pakistan Software House Association. Check it out here:

http://webstudio.ciopakistan.com/2009/08/itlow-ep47-all-those-who-yello-say-ay/

After the recent problems Lahore has faced, I am glad to report that the people I have come across in the city seem unperturbed by it. yellO has been getting a lot of traffic from the search engines due to the great mix of businesses, classified ads and events that are being listed by Karachi’s residents. Karachi has been the main focus of our efforts to generate community involvement with yellO, but it is high time that we also focus on Lahore and soon Islamabad. Being back in Lahore is great because the city has so many wonderful childhood memories for me. I hope to return many times more over the next few months.

Some Facts

Estimates of the number of displaced people from Swat stand at one million, the United Nations’ refugee agency has said.

Number arrived at safe areas: 200,000

On the move: 300,000

Displaced previously: 555,000

Khalid Khan Umerzai, commissioner of the Mardan division in NWFP said “This will be the biggest displacement of Pakistanis since independence”.

Camps

There are about 11 functioning refugee camps in West Pakistan to receive the displaced. “Tens of thousands of people are living in makeshift camps or staying with relatives, and the Pakistani government has called on the international community to donate money, resources and tents”. At the moment the Pakistani government is ill-prepared for the refugee exodus from Swat. “Clearly, we’re facing a major humanitarian crisis,” said Red Cross spokesman Sebastian Brack, adding his organization is mobilizing trucks, medical and supplies and food.

Mardan division is the main staging point for people fleeing the fighting in Malakand where Swat is located, and the government has set up three camps for the uprooted people and is opening three more. On Marden’s outskirts, a tent village has been set up with the help of the United Nations and international aid agencies on sprawling ground levelled for construction of a housing complex.

Plight

“I could bring just one blanket and a few clothes for my children with me,” said Omar Bacha, a resident of Mingora, who arrived in the camp on Wednesday, as nearby his seven-year-old son cuddled his shirtless younger brother.

“We are ruined,” said bearded Behroz Khan. “Taliban are on the ground, helicopters are in the sky, we are caught in between.”

At the back of the camp, poor women, some carrying infants in their laps, were sitting on the ground waiting impatiently for their turn to be registered, which would enable them to get free food and other basic supplies. Food was being cooked in about 20 cauldrons nearby while labourers dug ditches to lay sanitation pipes. “While we cannot give them the comfort of their home, we will try to make it as easy for them as possible,” Fikret Akcura, the top U.N. official in Pakistan, said in a statement.

Testimonials from BBC website

One can see a flood of displaced people on roads, railway lines and on the streets of Mardan. People offer all possible help. This is a huge displacement, we have to try to minimise the suffering of these people. Samad, Mardan

I am from Mardan, which borders Swat. I live in Manchester but I speak to my brother there. Today he told me that there is a flood of people from the affected area. People of our village are trying their best to accommodate them, but it looks very difficult, and if it continues like this we will be in a very bad position. Suhail Ahmad, from Mardan (currently in the UK)

What can we do?

At this point, collecting food, clothing, blankets, tents and funds for the internally displaced people is the best way we can help. Rather than mounting one enormous collection effort, you can help by working collectively on a platform. Go to www.yello.pk/events/add and mark the nearest Collection Point on the map and then encourage your friends and family to go and donate there. Collectively, we can make a difference.

yellO.pk - Bloopers

We are encouraging people in Pakistan to add details of Daily Wage workers like Carpenters, Labourers, Plumbers, Painters etc to yello.pk to make it easier for people to find the skilled workers and to help the workers find more work.

yellO.pk - Labour Day

I have been thinking a lot about how a small business owner survives in Pakistan. Yet more difficult is understanding how a labourer or anyone who works on a daily wage manages to get business in this sprawling metropolis.

When I first started out on the road to entrepreneurship, all I had was a laptop in a bag hanging from my shoulder, a list of appointments I had made by cold calling companies and the distance between each appointment that I had to cover on foot or by public transport.

I remember thinking at one point when I had become particularly weary from the great distance traveled that day, that every step I took was taking me towards my goal of getting my first bit of business for my newly registered company. It has been this memory more than anything else which has stayed with me and pushed me to work harder. I am fortunate that I do not have to be out on the road every day looking for clients anymore, but the thought that millions of people sit by the footpath on the streets of Karachi daily looking for work under the grueling hot sun has never ceased to haunt me. Perhaps because I run a small business which is always looking for more work just to keep going, I feel a kinship with the men who are constantly in search of work just to make enough to keep their families fed and under a roof.

Whenever I pass by Gizri and see the line of daily workers sitting shoulder to shoulder waiting for someone to come by who needs their services, I am reminded of how heavy my laptop felt as I walked a couple of kilometers to my next appointment. I have wanted to do something to help the people I see by the roadsides looking for work. It was one of the reasons I thought of a platform which brought together people with what is around them. yellO I hope, can one day bring together the daily worker with those who need their services. I can only hope, that the desire I have to use technology to help the citizens of our city may one day result in making that road to finding a daily wage a little shorter and easier.

Thank you to the faculty of SZABIST for allowing us to set up a stall at the campus and interact with the students. We wanted to gauge their reactions for the application we have built and get them involved with the ongoing improvement process for the User experience. The visitors to the stall ranged from Business students to Part-time web designers and even an anchor for a technology show on TV!

Overall, everyone we spoke to was excited about having a platform dedicated to Pakistan where people can interact virtually on a map and get to know people around them and how they feel about their city. We got some good feedback on the yello.pk application and we are already building in several of the suggestions which we thought were very insightful overall.

So, thank you to the SZABIST staff and student body for a great day on campus and some fantastic feedback on yellO.

The second yellO meetup is happening on 19th April at Copper Kettle on Stadium Road. The guys at CK have been great and really accommodating. From giving us our own area to allowing us a projector and speakers for the multimedia presentation, they have really gone out of their way to make it easy for us to organise the event. We hope to see a whole bunch of you there to make it as much of a success as the last one. This time I will try to remember to get some photos to put up on this blog.