Back in July 2020, a group of seven friends who shared a common vision came together and laid the foundation for an NGO called “Muruna”, which is an Arabic word that stands for resilience or toughness–the capacity to recover from difficulties. Muruna aims to empower women affected by poverty, physical and mental abuse, violence, lack of basic material necessities and disease. The vision Muruna upholds is to create communities where women are empowered to be self sufficient and free from societal norms curbing their growth. The resilience of women is something that inspires everyone at Muruna, and it is this resilience to which they dedicate their time so that a safer, more equal society can be achieved. Muruna came into existence when one of the co-founders, Faiqa, expressed her interest in having an NGO that works towards the betterment of society and that’s when her friends came together to set up an organization that aims to understand the needs of women from all walks of life and make attempts to cater to those needs. Raisa, a co-founder at Muruna, says that the NGO is still growing and developing.
So far, Muruna has run campaigns on their social media pages that pertain to educating women about their constitutional rights, making them understand the clauses of the Nikah Naama and spreading awareness about minority marriage laws & rape laws. The posts are made in both English and Urdu, so that a larger audience can consume the content. Their tagline is Haq ki Baat Aurat Ka Saath.
Muruna also collabrated with a youth led organization called AIESEC and delivered a session on the history of women’s empowerment in Pakistan. The NGO had planned to work on curating a hygiene related curriculum for a school in Rawalpindi but due to the ongoing pandemic, the project has put been shelved for the time being. For now, they are collaborating with a vocational center in Goth Machi, for whom they are also setting up social media pages in order to help the centre sell products created by the women training there. Whatever profit that is generated through the sales is distributed amongst the women who make those products. Profit distribution is done in such a manner because the people at Muruna believe that women should be economically independent.