Suleman Lalani is Regional Chair for the Aga Khan Foundation Volunteer Team, Southwest Region.

Q: How did your recent motorcycle trip to northern Pakistan come about?

A: A motorcycle riding friend talked about riding in northern Pakistan and the Karakoram Highway as a kind of biker’s heaven. He arranged the trip – it started off as four of us Americans and two Pakistan-based riders. I shared our itinerary with Aga Khan Foundation-Pakistan and they made arrangements for us to visit the activities of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) along our route, in Hunza, Skardu and elsewhere. We spent two weeks in September on the road, with many dangerous, twisting mountain passes. We rode next to steep cliffs that dropped away with no guard rails, and stones tumbling onto our path – always trouble for a biker. We wore special gear to protect us against the high mountain weather, and gained an appreciation for the conditions of people who lived there with no such protection.

Q: Where did you start?

A: We flew into the capital, Islamabad, and picked up our motorbikes. I hadn’t ridden in 25 years so I was very excited to be getting on a bike again. I quickly adapted to my local Honda 150, a very decent bike. Others had different bikes, up to a BMW 1250.

From Islamabad we headed north to Murree, on to Naran and Gilgit. From there we mapped a route taking us to Hunza, Sost, and the Khunjerab Pass, the world’s highest international road. Circling back to Hunza, we continued to the Deosai Plain and Skardu, Astore and Naran, on the way back to Islamabad. After that I would have a chance to visit Lahore and some of the cultural work of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture there.

The interesting thing was how our group grew. We fell into a routine: riding in the morning and resting at a hotel in the afternoon. We reached Hunza and that afternoon in the hotel café there we began talking about our trip, planning the next phase. It’s a small place, and soon everyone in the café was at our table, eager to learn more about our trip and how to join. That day our group grew from five to a dozen or 15 people.

The group was very international: men and women ranging from several Americans (a couple of information technology professionals and me, a doctor from Houston) to a surgeon from England, and educators from Australia.

Q: What was the highlight?

A: There were many. In Hunza we visited a girls’ academy, and an enterprise for gem-cutting that Aga Khan Rural Support Programme started with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Some said the academy is comparable in quality to an American school, and the students’ skills with computers and their command of English are very impressive. We also visited the women’s carpentry school there (watch a video), and saw their impressive products. The whole trip was incredibly eye-opening. The atmosphere of Hunza, for example, is very progressive.

It was also moving to see the community spirit. The principal of the girls’ academy was among its first group of graduates. She went on to study at university and earn two master’s degrees, and then returned to “give back” to the academy. It was amazing to see that depth of bonding. More than that, seeing all these activities showed me again that the Aga Khan Development Network works on all aspects of community life, not just one. The gem-cutting center builds skills and creates revenue, with the workshop on one floor and the showroom on the top floor. At the carpentry school the final products were of amazing quality; the women had created many items of furniture for the Serena Hotel. The workshops are creating professionals with entrepreneurial skills who can then open their own shops or get jobs in that same workshop, where they receive a significant commission on the work they sell.

In Skardu, we visited a greenhouse that combined farming training and women’s education. We met the woman owner who is training other women in bookkeeping and business skills as well as farming techniques.

We saw orchards and processing ventures that started with apricots and broadened their produce to cherries and other fruits, as well as potatoes. And we saw irrigation channels built with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development. A hydropower plant we saw provided three villages with electricity. Started with a $150,000 grant, the plant now provides electricity to 200 homes, each household a paying customer. They have a 100% payment rate. They’re proud to say that everyone pays for the service and that the project is completely self-sufficient. The facility is much more than a service provider; it also strengthens civil society and community involvement.

The small hydropower plant we visited is one among over 200 created throughout communities in the rural regions of northern Pakistan under the guidance of Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP). For those communities off the electricity grid, the impact of building micro hydropower plants has brought welcomed results.  The Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy awarded AKRSP a “Green Oscar,” noting, “Unlike dams, which invariably damage the local eco-system, the micro-hydel technology used by AKRSP involves simply digging a narrow channel to divert water along a hillside and into a pipe, creating enough pressure to turn a turbine and so produce 20 -100kw of power.”

We also saw the Shigar Fort, which had been converted to an elegant Serena Hotel. I was amazed to find that something like that exists. In Lahore, too, I visited the cultural restoration that Aga Khan Trust for Culture has done, and its effect on surrounding neighborhoods. There was friction at the start. For example, vendors had set up shops in the arches of one site; they were relocated for the restoration and unhappy about that (though they were given a stipend and alternate space). But when they saw the results of the restoration they changed their minds and were very pleased. At the next site planned for restoration, vendors there had heard about the Aga Khan Trust for Culture’s work and were looking forward to that quality of work.

Q: What struck you most during the trip?

A: It was refreshing and soul-touching to see all these people engaged in these efforts. I was not terribly surprised – I’ve worked with Aga Khan Foundation in the U.S. as a volunteer and regional chairman for years. Reading about the work, though, is different than seeing it live. The progressive atmosphere was inspiring – everything from solar panels to the delicious pastries in the Hunza Café.

We volunteers for Aga Khan Foundation in the U.S. work hard at fundraising for these programs but what the communities there do with that support, and the challenges they face, are so impressive. The geography and political setting is so challenging but they’re making changes that are sustainable. Hunza has improved. Karimabad has a literacy rate over 90% – better than some places in the U.S. The education, environment and development opportunities have changed the face of that town; so much that other towns that didn’t want to engage with Aga Khan Foundation before, are now requesting that AKF come and help with schools or health centers. This is a game-changing impact: someone who was against you is now for you, and asking you to work together.

My fellow bikers who took this journey with me remarked how impressed they were by the people we met, and the Foundation’s work. Kenny Lee, from Australia, summed up his feelings well: “It was inspiring seeing the great work being carried out and the grass-roots benefits gained by individuals, the community and country as a whole. Education and training, self-sufficiency, infrastructure development, gender equality – it all points towards a bright and prosperous future for Pakistan. I can’t wait to return again and again to see it all happen.”