TIMERGARA: A colourful three-day youth and children festival began here on Tuesday.

Lower Dir Nazim Mohammad Rasool Khan and Additional Deputy Commissioner Irshad Khan inaugurated the event during a function held at the Rest House ground.

Youth, children, LG representatives, officials of district administration, social and political activists were present on the occasion.

The Lower Dir administration and civil society have jointly arranged the festival.

Earlier, students of different schools presented naat, songs, dances, tableau, tug-of-war and other traditional games. Stalls of locally embroidered clothes, shawls, caps, traditional meals andancient weapons were also set up.

The popular Pashto comedian Mir Awas performed on the stage and got applause from the audience.

The district nazim and other speakers said the festival would provide entertainment opportunity to families.

WOMEN ROLE IN DECISION MAKING: The executive director of the Association for Behaviour and Knowledge Transformation (ABKT) Shad Begum on Tuesday urged the women members of all tiers of the local government system to come forward and play active role in planning and decision making process in their respective councils.

She was talking to Dawn here after launching a district women councillors caucus (DWCC) in Lower Dir.

The DWCC is a network of 30women councillors from the district, tehsil and village councils. A nine member cabinet for the caucus would be announced soon.

Members of the forum would meet every fortnight to discuss issues pertaining to local government and their role.

The ABKT, a non-profit organisation working on societal reforms, health, education and provision of basic facilities in KP and Fata, would build capacity of the caucus members.

Ms Begum said caucuses existed at national and provincial levels that united women lawmakers on a single platform to make plans and get role in decision making.

She said the caucus aimed to build capacity of women councillors to enable them to play role at grassroots level. She said the caucus would be extended to other districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.