San Francisco Bay Area Urdu Club

Yasin Khan (Urdu 2014) formed an Urdu Club with heritage Urdu speakers of varying fluency in the San Francisco Bay Area. The club was formed when Yasin found that many Urdu heritage speakers, although they may have older relatives who speak the language fluently, were not comfortable having open conversations due to their respect for their elders. The club met virtually for the first few months of the pandemic, and then transitioned to meeting outdoors, while keeping distance, throughout the summer. Due to the difficulty of finding Urdu learning materials, club members pooled their collective knowledge of different resources to create a database of materials to learn and practice the language, which they plan to share with others.

"All of the Urdu Club participants felt that especially during the isolation and uncertainty of the pandemic, we really benefited from building community with other Urdu speakers."