Lucknow Alumni Students Use Alumni Development Fund to Continue Studying Urdu

Sehris Khawaja (Lucknow, India ’09) and Cayley Pater (Lucknow, India ’09) used funds from the Alumni Development Fund to continue their study of Urdu in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during summer 2011. Having studied together in the same intermediate level Urdu class during the summer program in 2009, they wanted to continue learning together through private lessons with an Urdu tutor.

They organized private tutoring lessons with Romeena Sami Kureishy, an Urdu instructor for the STARTALK Urdu language program at the University of Pennsylvania. In order to practice reading and writing skills, Romeena suggested that we use selected short stories from C.M. Naim’s textbooks. In the lessons, they practiced speaking, reading and writing using Naim’s texts as well as news articles from Pakistani newspapers.

Sehris will utilize her Urdu language skills to communicate with Urdu-speaking patients in her work as a future physician. Cayley plans to use her Urdu in the field of sustainable international development, focusing on South Asian communities.