YouTubers were shocked to see a 12-year- old girl interviewing former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan with the ease of a senior journalist at his home in Lahore’s Zaman Park. Khan himself was quite seriously assessing each and every question and replying the little girl with his well-thought-out answers. The video has already crossed 21,000 views in three weeks.
The 7th grader Zahwah Nuray Fatima may be still a kid, but has a fair idea of what Journalism is all about as both her parents are leading journalists. One day while uploading a documentary video of school project on YouTube, an idea struck in her mind - why not to have a channel specially for kids where they can access content and solutions to various issues of children. Currently, the 13 -year-old Zahwah is Pakistan’s youngest journalist with presence across all social media platforms. With over 50,000 views and around 1,500 subscribers, Zahwa’s YouTube channel has several viewers eagerly waiting for her next video to get uploaded.
Zahwah has won a runner up award at UK based organisation’s Young Voices Award where there were 144 applicants from 36 countries. There was also a cash prize of $500. She has also received the ‘Freedom of speech’ award by the Governor of Punjab and ‘Human Rights’ award. Zahwah recently represented Pakistan in an online consultation with UN (Asia) regarding child rights mainstreaming.
Zahwah gets tremendous encouragement from father Shiraz Hasnat who is the bureau chief of Pakistan’s leading television channel HUM News and mother Wara Haider who has been a freelance journalist with several television channels. Zahwah who studies the IB board curriculum at Lahore’s Beacon House Newland school is also a champion footballer and athlete. While her 10-year old brother also contributes to the channel with book reviews, Zahwah has got huge response from other kids and school management, which is definitely motivating her to do even better. In fact, the video of Zahwah interviewing the former PM is endlessly travelling around the internet, so much so that even on Imran Khan’s channel it has become a leading video by number of views.
Zahwah says that soon her YouTube channel would be qualified for monetisation and will start generating revenues boosting its prospects to the next level. She targets to create a platform in future that is hugely beneficial for the youths and children of Pakistan.