BrightSpyre Supporting Relief Efforts in rural Mardan

BrightSpyre and its parent organization Cogilent Solutions joins hands with UM Healthcare Trust to support relief efforts for Buner and Swat refugees in rural Mardan. BrightSpyre has consented to collect donations/supplies/equipment of all sorts in Islamabad and send it to the victims/refugees in Mardan in collaboration with UM Healthcare Trust.

We urgently require medicines and supplies as listed here: http://tinyurl.com/qjxgh2

UM Healthcare Trust (http://www.umtrust.org) was established in 2004 with the aim to provide affordable healthcare for the poor and needy in rural Pakistan. Today, By the Grace of God, they are successfully running their services on a regular basis in rural Mardan District of Pakistan. Their hospital is located in the village of Zahidabad, NWFP which is 200KM North of Islamabad. Since September 2008, they have treated over 15,000 patients off which over 5,000 have proper medical histories and tracked on a regular basis.

You can see videos of their efforts at :http://www.umtrust.org/media

UM Healthcare Trust's hospital in Zahidabad is located at the border of Buner District and therefore, they have witnessed a huge influx of refugees into the area since the conflict began earlier in April 2009. In fact, an estimated 100,000 refugees are located/housed in a 10KM radius of this medical facility. The conflict, that has been going on since the War on Terror began earlier this decade, has caused over 1.5 million refugees in the province of NWFP (North West Frontier Province) of Pakistan. As a response to this crisis, UM Healthcare Trust, in collaboration with its stakeholders (NUST, APPNA among others) has launched a massive healthcare relief effort for the refugees streaming in from the Buner & Swat district.

A photo stream of the efforts can be seen here at http://picasaweb.google.com/mumtaz.atif/BunerRefugees


The project is a joint collaboration between UM Healthcare Trust (http://www.umtrust.org), NUST (http://www.seecs.edu.pk), and APPNA (http://www.appna.org) and is partially supported by grants from USAID (http://www.usaid.gov), ISIF (http://www.isif.asia) and Cybernet (http://www.cyber.net.pk satellite connectivity for Tele-healthcare servces) and ordinary people like you and me. In this hour of the need for refugees we need your support as we are running short on medical supplies.

No international non-profit is not operating in our area and thus our limited resources are under a lot of stress. NUST (http://www.seecs.edu.pk) and BrightSpyre (www.brightspyre.com) have consented to be the collection points for relief goods in Islamabad and Rawalpindi area. We are currently finalizing venues in other cities for collection of relief goods.

STEP Job Board - A Step Forward for Persons with Disabilities

http://step.jobboard.com.pk

Did you know that there are over 16 million persons with disabilities in Pakistan? And did you know that majority of these people are unemployed and do not have a job? Did you know that Government of Pakistan requires, by law, every enterprise to hire 2% of the workforce from persons with disabilities. Did you know that there are over 65,000 private limited companies registered with Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) yet, hardly 1% if registered enterprises comply to these rules set by the Government?

BrightSpyre in collaboration with STEP (Special Talent Exchange Program) has embarked on an initiative to support people with disabilities seek better and qualified jobs within Pakistan and abroad. The Job Board was inaugurated by Mr. Zamrud Khan, Managing Director of Bait-ul-Mal, Pakistan. Mr. Khan in his speech talked about the need to influence the government to understand their needs and hoped that together we can prevail on the government to have atleast five seats reserved in the Parliament and Senate for people with disablities.

This year, STEP and BrightSpyre will promote the recruitment of Persons with Disabilities (PWD) in all across Pakistan and bring awareness to the cause.

Mr. Atif Sheikh, President, STEP emphasized the need to bring people with disabilities into the mainstream by giving them employment opportunities just like any other individual. In his speech, we learned that Pakistan government first recognised the need for PWD in 1981 and only in 2002 did the framework was developed and adopted by the government. Still a lot of work has to be done including making places accessible to the disable in Pakistan.

The ceremony was attended by the HR managers of leading enterprises in Islamabad.


STEP is a non-profit organization run and managed for the people with disabilities by themselves. It was founded by the Alumni of Special Education Centers who felt the need to form a cross disability self-help group. Students Talent Exchange program (STEP) was then conceived and launched by the alumni of special education centers of Islamabad in order to bring a change in the behavior of society toward People with disabilities (PWDs) in 1997.

BrightSpyre, is Pakistan's first and largest job portal operating in Pakistan since 2002 with over 600,000 unique registered job seekers and boasts in excess of 2 Million page views for the jobs advertised through its portal.

Photo stream of the event can be seen here:

STEP-BrightSpyre Job Board

Labor Day Offer from BrightSpyre

BrightSpyre, at its best, introducing a luminous offer on Labor Day. Job Posting has never been so cheaper before, with all the hi-tech tools to make your hiring process smooth, efficient, and effective than ever before. Please visit www.brightspyre.com to get the full benefits from the discounted prices.

Features:

• Hot Jobs on First Page
• Display of Company Logo
• Online Filtering Facilities
  
• Emails to shortlisted Candidates
• Automated Interview Scheduler

Discount Rates (Valid till 15th May 2009)

• PKR 750/- for Single Job
• PKR 3500/- for Unlimited Jobs

Startup Insiders Session in Islamabad

Once again, BrightSpyre, in collaboration with NUST and PASHA is organizing a Startup Insiders Session in Islamabad.

The purpose of this session is to provide a platform to motivated and brilliant people, who are thinking of launching a startup, get a handle on really what they've got and way to make it a success- an idea, a feature, a product, or a business and what not. Past events have attracted sizable crowds of over 150 people per session.

This session will feature a panel of successful serial entrepreneurs with remarkable business experience. They will lead the audience through a series of evaluations critical in implementing the ideas into successful ventures.

Theme: Turning Ideas into Reality
Date/Time: Friday, May 08, 2009 (6~9pm)
Hosted by : NUST SEECS [ http://www.nseecs.edu.pk/ ]
Venue: SEECS Fountain Area [ http://tinyurl.com/nust-seecs-map
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/dlbqww
Registration (Mandatory): We have limited seats so please register here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cjVXOXI2bU9hWVJ5eGNPVF96anUwdGc6MA..

This is a must attend event for young entrepreneurs, wanaa be entrepreneurs and students.