Empowering Educators and Scholars
About Us
The Alkitaab Bookcafe was conceived by Dr Nadia Anwar, during the Corona Pandemic in 2019, to provide a vibrant space to teachers, researchers, students, and scholars to gather and share their ideas and research. During those stressful times, it helped its participants to find peace with others and develop a de-hierarchized liminal space where they were all acknowledged as individuals irrespective of their academic qualification or professional position. Alkitaab is a unique club that provides an opportunity to its members to read and discuss different books, to get reliable information, and to discover and share their ideas with others.
The founders of Alkitaab feel that within the context of fast paced digital world, the love for reading books among the young generation is dead, while the adult population with the love of books struggles to find avenues to satisfy their intellectual needs. They would prefer to spend hours on any social media app than taking out time to read a good book. However, if someone wants to sit and read while enjoying a frothy mug of coffee or tea, not many choices are available. This eventually splits the customers of both the bookstores and the cafes. We aim to bring them together on a single platform. Join us to make it possible!
Vision
We aspire to create and sustain an intellectually healthy community in love with books.
Aim
The aim of Alkitaab Bookcafe (Pvt) Limited, to be materialized in Alkitaab Bookcafe, is to create a space which combines the concept of literary/reading club and book-based cafe aiming to ignite the spirit of healthy and peaceful communal space and to bring the youth back to the reading and literary culture.
Our Projects
- Under the Alkitaab Bookcafe, Alkitaab Reading Club will continue holding its events virtually and from the platform of UMT, Lahore, until a permanent venue is planned to give it a physical base.
Alkitaab Reading Club works with an aim to bring together an exclusive group of enthusiastic readers and writers to connect and build a social network. The Club’s mission is to foster learning and love for reading.
Its objectives are;- To promote critical thinking, creativity, and self-expression.
- To disseminate knowledge.
- To develop the habit of reading and learning by engaging with different cultures, literatures, and socio-political realities.
- To ensure mental wellbeing
- To promote social interactions, empathy, and tolerance.
- Alkitaab Publications will providea platform where the hypothetical curves of literature, technology, spirituality, and socio-cultural concerns convex to satisfy human intellectual curiosity. Using available contemporary media outlets, e.g., newsletters, blogs, journals, mailing lists, podcasts etc. nuggets of knowledge will be disseminated to create a helpful and welcoming writing and reading space. The launching of Alkitaab Publications will help ignite an easily available outlet to novice writers as well as help veteran writers to disseminate their knowledge and wisdom to others. Although, a number of publications rule the intellectual and academic world, not many facilitate young writers and even if they do, there are ideological restrictions on topics and themes. The publications under Alkitaab will promote independence, creativity, and innovation to its writers. We hope that this initiative will directly and indirectly benefit the Alkitaab Bookcafe’s vision and may serve as a funding arm towards that end, as well.
- Alkitaab Social Outreach project aims to initiate different community-based programs and advising services including, helping the budding and struggling writers to get recognized and published and creating opportunities for adult and young learners to materialize their educational needs through voluntary services.
