Amna Ilyas is renowned actress and model. She won the Lux Style Awards award for best female model and used her acceptance speech to send across a strong message on the concept of “dark is beautiful”. She is also associated with Depilex smile again foundation, which is focusing on providing medical care to acid survivors and in her upcoming movie, she is portraying the role of a feminist to promote gender equality.

“It is a great privilege for me to be part of Punjab Population Innovation Fund, for its awareness campaigns with special focus on the youth. As a pre-requisite to effective health care, everyone requires access to reliable and Up-to-date Family Planning information in the right language, with the right slant and at the right time. Given the high population growth and Pakistan’s youth bulge, the time is ripe for the youth particularly to become aware of their right to family planning information and education, specially recognized under sustainable development goals. As a media person, I am happy to further PPIF’s message engaging and educating the young audience of making an informed choice as an informed family leads to a smart family”

Firstly, I will sensitise the youth though my social media as the majority of Pakistan is younger than 30 which means the youth bulge stands at 60 percent.

Secondly, as part of the assignment, I will use my influencer status to help debunk several socio-cultural myths associated with family planning. As the Ambassador of PPIF, I will be touring Punjab-wide campuses especially universities and colleges to have a face to face interaction with the students about the population pressures on Pakistan. The girl students in particular, will be sensitised about the health issues of unplanned motherhood and the men and women both will be made aware of the financial costs associated with large families.

Finally, I believe Media has a huge role to play as a force multiplier and as a media person I will encourage the social media bloggers, journalists and anchorperson to spotlight this issue as Pakistanis remain apathetic to the consequences of Pakistan’s unsustainable population growth.

I believe these are achievable goals as regionally India and Bangladesh have done it. Muslim states like Indonesia and Iran have used innovative solutions to take the message to the wider public. I especially like the Iranian approach of a newly married couple undergoing an FP counselling session before marriage. It is a mandatory requirement before Nikah. In Pakistan we can replicate global practices like these to achieve success and as a responsible Pakistan citizen in the public eye, I’m honoured and motivated to do my bit.