Pakistan recently reached a milestone on the world stage. It may be mentioned here that the Toastmasters International is a nonprofit educational organization that operates worldwide for the purpose of promoting communication, public speaking and leadership. Throughout its history, Toastmasters has served over four million people, and today the organization serves over 358,000 members in 141 countries.

This year in a historical first a Toastmasters district conference took place in Pakistan held from 30 May to 1 June. The Pakistani District Director Sameer Hamid Dodhy stated that the unique point about the conference was that it held virtually due to the COVID 19 crisis – conducted through Zoom and streamed live on Facebook.

Various international dignitaries such as Daniel Rex (CEO Toastmasters) from USA, Margaret Page (First Vice President) from Canada, Balraj Arunasalam (Past International President) from Sri Lanka and Aletta Rochat (International Director) from South Africa spoke on the great potential of Pakistan. The audience was scintillated by two international World Champions of Public of Public Speaking who also graced the conference. Mark Brown (from USA) spoke on the theme of “Stronger Together” and another champion Mohammed Qahtani (from Saudi Arabia) narrated a soul searching story about his grandfather.

The most intense moments came at the time of the competition between Pakistani champions. The international speech contest was won by Muhammad Farooq from Karachi and the evaluation contest was won by Aneel Peter from Islamabad.

The resounding success of the conference shows the interest of people in Pakistan on improving public speaking and leadership skills and is ample evidence of Pakistanis being talented.

Toastmasters International website https://www.toastmasters.org/

Toastmasters Pakistan website https://www.toastmasters.pk/