I am a very optimistic person, optimistic to the point where most think I’m a little crazy. I have tried the “In a mad world, it’s only the mad that are considered sane” approach to assuage my need to fit in with the mostly glass-half-empty lot that most of my acquaintances are, but, it doesn’t work. Then why don’t I change the way I am? Simple: because good things have happened when I was least expecting them. Like Samasource.

It’s been about a month since I’ve been doing odd bits for Samasource as a virtual assistant. Seeing the work Samasource is doing for people in countries like Kenya and Pakistan has been a source of inspiration. To want to help people that you don’t know, irrespective of religion, culture, or belief is not something many people do.

Speaking as a citizen of my country, there is huge scope and potential for an organization like Samasource. Pakistan is a strong patriarchal society with little distinction between culture and religion with women on the losing end. Though most women are denied the opportunity for education, but to be educated and unable to use that education is stifling. Samasource offers to women a way out as a balance between conforming to cultural norms and utilizing skills whether it be writing, programming or web development. It gives an opportunity for women entrepreneurs to step forward and start their own companies from their homes and find work through Samasource.

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” (Theodore Roosevelt)

When I look at the impossible task in front of Samasource and the honesty and conviction with which they are working to make it possible I understand the meaning of these words. Sometimes it’s not about winning or losing. It’s about dreaming and having the courage to try and make that dream into reality. Samasource has renewed my belief in people. It takes a whole lot of darkness to make it dark but only a small flicker of light to cut through it. That’s what Samasource means to me and other women in Pakistan; it’s our own ray of light, our way of escaping the claustrophobic environment surrounding us.