Happy Birthday, Aga Khan IV, Leader of Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims

By Isabel Cowles

Aga Khan IV is a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. The Aga Khan succeeded his grandfather, Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan, to become the 49th hereditary Imam of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims. He has spent his life working to strengthen the Muslim community through his belief that the ethic of Islam “requires members of the faith to contribute to improving the quality of all human life.”

Early Days

Karim Aga Khan IV was born to Prince Aly Khan and Princess Tajuddawlah Aly Khan on December 13, 1936 in Geneva, Switzerland. For four years during World War II, he lived with his brother and parents in Nairobi, Kenya, where he received a religious education. At the end of the war, the family returned to Europe. He attended Le Rosey School in Switzerland where he concentrated on learning Arabic, Urdu and Islamic history. Upon graduation, he enrolled at Harvard and earned a BA Honors Degree in Islamic history in 1959.

In 1954, under the direction of his grandfather, sitting Imam Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan, the Aga Khan and his brother, Prince Amyn, traveled to the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent and East African countries to observe traditions of the Muslim faith.

Three years later, Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan died, leaving these instructions: “I should be succeeded by a young man who has been brought up and developed during recent years and in the midst of the new age and who brings a new outlook on life to his office as Imam.” For those reasons, he appointed his grandson Karim, instead of his own son, to succeed to the title of Aga Khan.

The Aga Khan took a year off from Harvard to visit a variety of Ismaili communities before his appointment as Imam. He was named to the position at ceremonies held in Nairobi, Bombay, Kampala, Dar-es-Salaam and Karachi.

Notable Accomplishments

Since becoming Imam, the Aga Khan has worked to facilitate the well-being of Ismaili Muslims and their communities, which are found in 25 countries worldwide. To implement these initiatives, the Aga Khan created the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), an organization that is divided into nine separate agencies including The Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, Aga Khan University and the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance.

In addition to serving as a spiritual leader for the world’s 15 million Ismaili Muslims, the Aga Khan has also developed and personally maintains a fortune in excess of $1 billion. Most of Khan’s investments are in Africa and Asia. According to The Independent, these small and medium-sized enterprises were “set up as engines of employment to promote economic self-reliance among the poorest people.” In addition, the Imam heads the world’s largest private aid agency, the Aga Khan Development Foundation, which offers developing countries $300 million a year for rural development, education and health care.

The Rest of the Story

The Aga Khan is regarded by the Ismaili Muslims as the final authority on interpreting the Quran. According to CNN, one religious scholar even remarked that he is “more powerful than the pope.” The Aga Khan recently visited the United States to promote his agenda of narrowing the gap between the Western world and Islam—a project he has approached through partnerships with American universities. One of the main themes the Aga Khan has focused on when describing the difficult relations between Islam and the West is a “clash of ignorance,” rather than a clash of cultures, beliefs or faiths.

In a 2006 interview, the Aga Khan articulated his beliefs about Islam and the West, referring to Islam as “a faith of reason,” stating that he believes Islamic terrorism results from “[u]nsolved political conflicts, frustration and, above all, ignorance. Nothing that was born out of a theological conflict.”

Source: http://www.findingdulcinea.com/features/
happy-birthday/2008/Dec/Aga-Khan-IV.html

Coffee with the FT: His Highness the Aga Khan

By Rachel Morarjee

In a deeply undignified start to my interview with one of the world’s most famous spiritual leaders, I am pressing my face against the glass of the Ismaili Centre in South Kensington, gesticulating wildly as I try to catch the eye of the dark-suited security man. It seems to me he is, perhaps reasonably, deliberately ignoring the madwoman outside.

As I’ve already tried pushing the locked door, I eventually stand on the street corner and rummage inelegantly in my bag to find my phone. After a long wait, I manage to get hold of a friend who works for His Highness the Aga Khan, who lets me in.

My requests for a lunch or breakfast meeting had been deflected by the Aga Khan’s aides, who gave me the unusual excuse that the leader of 20m Ismaili Muslims guards his privacy so zealously that he would be reluctant to reveal what he eats at mealtimes. So we settle on a coffee.

Tall, in a grey suit and a burgundy tie, the Aga Khan, 71, would blend seamlessly into a crowd of London commuters. He welcomes me with a smile and says, acknowledging our tricky discussions about this interview: “Not breakfast, not lunch, not dinner, but coffee. What would you like to drink?”

The room is impersonal but, as I sit down on a plush chair, I look out and see a lush flower-filled internal roof garden, a courtyard where water flows into a fountain.

I met the Aga Khan twice during my three-year stint as a reporter for the FT in Afghanistan so I am used to the atmosphere of stiff formality that surrounds him. After 51 years, he is presumably used to it too. In July 1957, at the age of 20, he took over from his grandfather as leader of the Ismailis, who are followers of the Shia Muslim tradition.

A woman brings the Aga Khan a white coffee while I opt for a cup without milk or sugar, which I try to balance on the arm of the chair and drink. I am dismayed to see no sign of anything edible.

The Aga Khan’s thoroughbred passion
As the most successful racehorse owner-breeder in France, the Aga Khan has won just about everything, several times over, writes Rachel Pagones. And while racing is a fast and furious sport – the verdict delivered in around two and a half minutes for races such as the Epsom Derby – breeding the horses for these contests can be an agonisingly slow process. Patience is the Aga Khan’s hallmark.

He inherited the business from his father, Prince Aly, and grandfather, the Aga Khan III, who bought his first thoroughbreds in Deauville in 1921 and went on to win the Epsom Derby five times. For his part, Prince Aly became the first owner in Britain to win £100,000 in a season in 1959, the year before he was killed in a car accident outside Paris.

The present Aga Khan’s “families” of broodmares often produce a top-class winner after three or four generations on the backburner. He is the least commercial of the large, independently wealthy owner-breeders, including Sheikh Mohammed, ruler of Dubai, Prince Khalid Abdullah of the Saudi royal family, and John Magnier of Coolmore Stud in Ireland, all of whom promote many of their own stallions for use by other breeders. He has only four stallions on his six properties in France and Ireland.

Money also helps. The Aga Khan’s operation breeds from its own stock, but makes a big purchase when a rare opportunity arises. The most recent was in 2005 when the Aga Khan bought the late Jean-Luc Lagardère’s bloodstock holdings, including two studs and close to 200 horses, for an industry estimate of between €40m and €50m.

The Aga Khan has had four winners of both the Epsom and Irish Derby, including Shergar, the most famous horse in Britain during his lifetime – he won the Epsom Derby by a record ten lengths in 1981 – but this achievement has been largely replaced in the public mind by the memory of the horse’s bizarre kidnapping in 1983, a year after he was retired to stud in Ireland with a valuation of £10m. The most thorough reports conclude it was an IRA plot, and the horse was killed not long afterwards, probably because the kidnappers had trouble handling him.

The Aga Khan’s current star is an unbeaten filly named Zarkava. The favourite for next weekend’s Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe, she descends from Petite Etoile, a grey filly who starred on British tracks just before and after Prince Aly’s death. Petite Etoile’s great-great-grandmother was Mumtaz Mahal, one of the first and most important horses purchased by the Aga Khan III for 9,100 guineas in 1922.

I feel slightly on show now, as there are a lot of people crowded into the room with us. There is a Paris-based PR man, an older Ismaili man and, most disconcertingly of all, a young woman with a notepad, poised to write down everything I say.

The Aga Khan wears a suit even when he’s travelling and working in Islamic countries. It’s not a look that we are used to seeing on Muslim spiritual leaders, so I decide to start by asking whether his clothing attracts criticism in the Muslim world. The woman with the notepad starts scribbling furiously. Uh-oh, I think, and I get the question thrown back to me: “You have lived in a Muslim country. Are you aware of any requirement for an Imam to wear a particular type of clothing? There are traditions but are you aware of any theological requirement?”

I ask again, and this time the Aga Khan replies, “I have never sensed that as a problem. Imams in sub-saharan Africa dress differently than Imams in the Middle East, who dress differently from Imams in central Asia.” He adds that for ceremonial occasions, he wears a traditional robe and Astrakhan hat – a look favoured by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

This question of clothing goes to the heart of the paradox of the Aga Khan. While he’s a spiritual leader to millions of Muslims, he is best-known in the west as the highest-profile racehorse owner in France, where he lives.

The other unusual thing about this spiritual leader is how staggeringly rich he is. The Aga Khan’s personal wealth is estimated at $1bn but the Ismaili community is tight-lipped about how much of the Aga Khan’s money is his own and how much is ring-fenced for religious and development work.

I ask him how he reconciles such great wealth with having so many impoverished followers in many parts of the developing world. “Well, I think first of all you have to reposition the statement about having great wealth. I would say, frankly, that’s nonsense,” he says, smiling emphatically.

What is in no doubt is that the Aga Khan comes from a privileged background. He was born Karim al-Hussayni in Geneva in 1936 and was known as Prince Karim. After school in Switzerland, he went to the US and graduated from Harvard in 1959 with a BA honours degree in Islamic history.

His parents divorced in 1949 and his father later married Hollywood actress Rita Hayworth. The couple were a favourite of the gossip columns, although the marriage did not survive long. The unwelcome spotlight at that time might be part of why the Aga Khan now guards his privacy so carefully.

The Aga Khan title was granted to the family by the Shah of Persia in the 1830s after he had married his daughter to the Aga Khan’s great-great-grandfather. The man sitting opposite me is only the fourth to hold the title. As I sip my rapidly cooling coffee, I settle back and hear how the myth of fabulous family wealth was created when the third Aga Khan, grandfather of Aga Khan IV, was given his weight in gold during his golden jubilee celebrations in 1936.

Although Aga Khan III was only 5ft 5in, he tipped the scales at 220lb and the donations added up to $125,000 – a vast fortune in 1936. The ceremony of sitting on the scales with the gold made a great impression on the British public at the time. “In the west, this was seen as some sort of fantastic ceremonial, and this was because India at the time was ceremonial.” The current Aga Khan did not have to endure anything like this during his own golden jubilee celebrations during 2007 and 2008, not least because the 1930s gold made a solid bedrock for investments.

Ismailis have also traditionally paid a tithe to their Imams. The Aga Khan tells me that money raised by Ismaili followers does not end up in his pocket. “There is a great difference between wealth which comes from the faith and is used for the faith and personal wealth used for the individual. The Imam has responsibility for significant resources but they in no way cover the needs we have, and never will,” he says.

The Aga Khan inherited shares in corporations, banks, trusts and oil from his grandfather in 1957 and, over the past five decades, he has built a vast business development network by investing in poor and conflict-torn parts of the globe. He is the key shareholder in many of the projects but his profits are reinvested in the businesses, which are often run by members of the Ismaili community.

He began with newspaper investments in east Africa in the 1960s and now runs investment ventures tightly linked to development work that funds schools, hospitals and architectural projects.

In Afghanistan, I saw how the success of the Aga Khan’s projects stood in contrast to the bumbling efforts of many western governments. He owns stakes in the country’s largest telephone network, and a five-star hotel but has also renovated ancient mosques, gardens and citadels as well as running educational and agricultural projects.

The Aga Khan says he sees his role as a venture capitalist who specialises in difficult environments, laying the foundations of projects to entice other investors. The Geneva-based Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (Akfed) runs more than 90 for-profit businesses and employs 36,000 people.

“There is no point going into economies that are wealthy and have their own resources, so we go into the really poor ones. If you try to put social development ahead of economic support, it doesn’t work. You have to do both together.

“A community whose economics don’t change is not one that can support community structures, education, healthcare, it doesn’t have the wherewithal,” he says.

The Aga Khan uses a lot of the same jargon used by development workers, mentioning “human resources” and “capacity building”. I am familiar with this way of talking from my time in Kabul but have always felt it a shame that it means that speakers often convey nothing of the real excitement involved in seeing a project take off and become an independent success.

His profits are reinvested in the Akfed businesses and the rest is paid in dividends to the other joint venture partners. These include private equity firm Blackstone, which has co-invested in a hydroelectric damn in Uganda, and Swedish telecoms group TeliaSonera, which holds a stake in Afghanistan’s largest telephone network,

Roshan has gone from strength to strength, its mobile business bolstered by the fact that it is impossible to lay landlines in a country so laced with landmines. But his five-star Serena Hotel in Kabul has attracted criticism for its opulence in a city where most people don’t have electricity and running water.

“The nature of what we do is high-risk,” the Aga Khan says, with characteristic understatement. I ask whether he thinks this long-term view is key to his success and he says that many projects can take 25 years to come to fruition. He cites a hospital in Pakistan that now produces world class doctors a quarter of a century after it opened. It would be hard to find western donors who would remain with a project for that long.

During his 51 years as Imam, he has watched the collapse of the Soviet Union, which brought Ismaili communities in central Asia back into contact with the outside world, as well as the rise of militant Islam. “Communities like the Ismailis don’t live in a vacuum,” he notes, saying that his job as Imam is to think carefully about how to address the problems in the societies his followers call home. The Ismaili diaspora is almost as widespread as the Jewish one.

I wonder whether he sees the clash between Islam and the west as the most serious global problem. “I’m unwilling to say that in these major issues today faith has been the prime driver. In my view it’s political issues that have been the prime driver,” he says. I ask whether that means they need political solutions. “Bang on,” he replies.

He believes ignorance about Islam in the west is a huge problem. “The Islamic world as an important part of our globe has really been absent from Judeo-Christian education in a strange way,” he says, asking how anyone can be considered properly educated in the west when they know nothing about Islam.

We have to finish, so I ask what he thinks his legacy will be, which provokes laughter and the response that he doesn’t have the faintest idea.

As I switch off the tape recorder and prepare to leave, he visibly relaxes and begins talking about Afghanistan in a far more open way, reminiscing about the Mujahideen leaders he knew during the country’s civil war. We step out into the roof garden, where running water blocks out the roar of traffic. The peace lasts only a moment – the Aga Khan always has more meetings – and I have to go in search of lunch.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2e55dd3a-8b59-11dd-b634-0000779fd18c.html

Iraq and Afghanistan: Ready for Tourists?

By William Moss Wilson

Recent initiatives show signs of hope for reviving long-dormant tourist sectors in war-torn Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Swiss-based Aga Khan Foundation is contributing $1 million over the next three years to the Bamiyan Ecotourism Project in central Afghanistan. According to Sanjeev Gupta, a regional program coordinator for Aga Khan, the project’s goal is to develop tourist infrastructure, train sector-related employees, and raise awareness about the region.

The relatively safe Bamiyan province is home to the stunning mountain lakes of Band-i-Amir and also to the cliff-carved Buddha statues, unfortunately destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

Local infrastructure in Bamiyan has a long way to go. The 150-mile journey from Kabul to Bamiyan takes ten hours on tortuous dirt roads through the Koh-i-Baba mountains. The alternative route is thought to be under Taliban control.

In Iraq, where oil money is filling state coffers and civilian mortality rates are at their lowest since the beginning of the Second Gulf War, optimism seems to be gaining a foothold.

The Iraqi Ministry of Tourism held a tourism fair last month and sponsored a contest for local artists to design posters promoting travel to the country. Mohsen al-Yacoubi, head of the tourism board, delivered the results of the contest to a packed conference room at the al-Mansour Melia hotel, the site of a deadly suicide bombing last year. The ministry announced plans to open tourism offices in select European cities in 2009.

Outside investors are also placing bets on the improving security climate in Iraq. American investor Robert Kelley broke ground last month on a $100-million luxury hotel in downtown Baghdad.

“We think the Iraqi people want to get along with each other,” Kelley told the Associated Press.

For time being, travel is discouraged outside the heavily fortified Green Zone. No official timetable exists for the reopening of the Baghdad Museum. The museum is located outside the Green Zone and officials worry that it could become an easy target for suicide bombers.

Religious tourism is already on the upsurge, thanks in part to an $80-million renovation of a military airfield in Najaf. Iraq’s newest airport opened to commercial traffic on July 20. The airport provides access to several of the Islamic world’s holiest sites in Najaf and nearby Karbala. An investment group led by the Kuwaiti firm Al-Aqeelah plans to pump another $170 million into the project as traffic into the airport increases.

The consensus among travelers, from Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree to Robert Young Pelton’s comebackalive.com, is that travel in Iraq south of Kurdistan remains a foolhardy endeavor. Both the US State Department and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs strongly discourage unnecessary travel to any part of Iraq or Afghanistan. Their web sites warn of the familiar dangers, terrorism, rampant kidnapping, and widespread use of roadside bombs, as well as less obvious threats-the World Health Organization has confirmed Iraq as a site of human deaths from avian influenza.

Other countries, including the UK, Denmark, Japan, and Germany, have amended their travel warnings to note the higher security level in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Source: www.ethicaltraveler.org/news_story.php?id=1105

Canada’s Engagement in Afghanistan

Farrah Musani: Action Diplomacy

Kandahar, Afghanistan — Kandahar might seem like an unusual place to run into a diplomat. It’s a conflict area, after all, and whether or not you have diplomatic passport, stepping outside prescribed safe areas can land you in a good bit of hot water.

But that’s exactly where Farrah Musani, an officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs, has been for the last year.

“This is a totally atypical environment for DFAIT to be working. I don’t think there’s anything else like it,” Musani tells me over coffee in the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) cafeteria.

“It’s been a pretty intense experience – but a very good one.”

Born outside Toronto, Musani moved with her family to Calgary in 1987. She graduated from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government before joining the Foreign Affairs team 2 years ago.

After a year with START– the Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force – in Ottawa, Musani got the call to head south. “I remember I got a phone call in mid-May last year,” she recalls.

“I called my parents and said, ‘How would you feel about my going to Kandahar for a year?’ At first all I got was silence on the other end of the line, but actually they were pretty cool about it.”

Musani’s work has focused on a number of areas, including assessing the state of the justice system in the region.

“A lot of what I do has focused on gathering information, and assessing people’s perception of what’s needed.”

The policing sector in Afghanistan is widely acknowledged – by Afghans and the international community alike – as needing fairly comprehensive reform. Indeed, this will increasingly be a focus for Canada, both in Kandahar, and country-wide.

Through the Global Peace and Security Fund, Musani is bridging the intangible diplomatic work characteristic of her department, with bricks-and-mortar projects like building police sub-stations. She suggests that Canadians and Afghans have been working closely on the file, and are starting to see results.

BRINGING BALANCE
The Government of Afghanistan’s effort to further the justice file is also a focus for Musani. She suggests that presently the justice sector is divided between the formal system, with judges and lawyers, and the informal system, which is generally described as being more “restorative” and is “supposed to return a sense of balance” to society.

“There are clearly limits to both systems,” Musani says, and she has been working with leaders from all walks of life in Kandahar to determine how best to identify and work within those limits.

It’s with talk of meeting chief justices and prosecutors, that one gets a sense for Musani’s background in diplomacy, and of the tremendous impact that such political officers can – and have – make on the ground. “I can really see the progress made since I started last year – we’re learning how to work as a team.”

The team she’s talking about involves not just Afghans, but also Canadians from a wide spectrum of agencies: the Canadian Forces, the Canadian International Development Agency, Corrections Canada, her home department of DFAIT and the RCMP. “There’s a complementary way of operating here in Kandahar. We’re not pinned into any one department’s possibly narrow way of doing things.”

Canada’s engagement in rebuilding Afghanistan is the largest in our country’s history. And Musani seems proud to be a part of it. “This is a huge engagement for Canada – and I feel like if we’re going to do it, we should do it right.”

Musani wraps up her stint in Kandahar this summer, but further adventures are not far off: she’s slated to start at Canada’s embassy in Kabul come the fall.

Source: http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca
/canada-afghanistan/kandahar/diplo.aspx

Jubilee for an imam among equals

After 50 years as the spiritual leader of 15 million Muslims, the Aga Khan is known for his progressive views - and his Irish connections

THE AGA KHAN was at the Curragh to watch the Irish Derby last Sunday. Not that you’d know it. While reporters scurried around trying to pick out the famous faces in the parade ring, Prince Karim Aga Khan IV and his daughter, Princess Zahra, came and went from the race track unnoticed by the 35,000 or so racegoers.

The imam, or spiritual leader, of 15 million Ismaili Muslims doesn’t court publicity. But that doesn’t stop the western media’s fascination with his private life. There’s plenty of material to choose from, whether it’s his vast wealth (more than €1.5 billion, according to the latest Sunday Times rich list), his hundreds of racehorses or, most recently, his reported hiring of Paul McCartney’s lawyer, Fiona Shackleton, to handle his divorce from his second wife.

He agreed to a rare interview with The Irish Times after becoming an honorary doctor of laws at NUI Maynooth this week, but it was requested beforehand that no personal questions be asked. When you are facing a direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad, it doesn’t seem like a good time to ask about celebrity tittle-tattle.

Prince Karim was a 20-year-old student at Harvard when his grandfather, Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah, died after naming him as his successor to lead the Ismaili Muslims. The Ismailis, the second-largest group of Shia Muslims, are scattered across 25 countries in five continents.

There was some surprise when the young prince was chosen, thus bypassing his father, Aly Khan, who led a flamboyant life which included joining the French Foreign Legion and marrying Rita Hayworth.

That accession took place more than 50 years ago and the 71-year-old father of four is now seen as one of the most progressive and liberal Islamic leaders.

Through the Aga Khan Development Network, he runs a group of development agencies working in areas such as health, education, enterprise, architecture, culture, micro-finance and disaster reduction. Its programmes are open to all, regardless of gender or religion. The network includes 235 non-profit hospitals and clinics and more than 300 schools.

BECAUSE OF HIS humanitarian work and promotion of equal rights, he has received many decorations and awards, yet he seems genuinely moved by the award from NUI Maynooth.

“I am deeply honoured,” he says “because this institution is a remarkable institution in its own right and therefore to receive an honorary degree from an institution such as this is very meaningful indeed.”

He hopes to work with NUI Maynooth on projects such as student exchanges and joint research programmes. Maynooth’s roots in Catholicism are particularly interesting to him because many universities in the developing world started as faith institutions and are now trying to transform themselves into modern research facilities.

“In the developing world, at least, we have an enormous amount of mediocrity,” he says. “Standards are terribly, terribly low and unless those standards are enhanced . . . you are not making a permanent contribution to the processes of change.”

So the connection between Ireland and the Aga Khans, which began in his grandfather’s lifetime, may well be strengthened. The Aga Khan owns several stud farms here, including his public stud at Gilltown, in Kilcullen, Co Kildare.

“We are not what I would call a commercial enterprise,” he says. “We are a traditional breeding operation and therefore our goal is to produce every year, if we can, outstanding thoroughbreds. And Ireland has made a massive contribution to that ever since my grandfather started.”

A large bronze statue of his most famous horse, Shergar, stands at Gilltown Stud. The Epsom and Irish Derby winner was kidnapped in 1983 while at stud.

While the IRA was widely thought to be responsible for the kidnapping, no one was ever charged with the crime. Fifteen years later, the Aga Khan still mourns the loss of Shergar.

“I think Shergar was only one aspect of the internal conflict in Ireland, one of the tragedies of this conflict,” he says. “Obviously I think it was a massive loss to Irish breeding, but the country has paid a very, very high price for its internal difficulties and there’s a lot to be learned about the way it got past that situation.

“I think there’s a lot to be learned also about how it got into that situation, because I still see the need to divide between faith issues and political issues.”

This is something he regularly emphasises as he urges the western world not to generalise about the Muslim world, saying it would be akin to taking the Troubles as the model for Catholicism.

“Certainly in the Islamic world we are tending to see issues which are political presented as faith issues, which they’re not,” he says.

The Aga Khan says it is unacceptable that religions are put forward as the major cause of situations when political problems are really to blame.

“The Middle East, after all, is a political issue first,” he says. “Kashmir was a political issue first. Even Afghanistan was a political issue first, rather than a faith issue. So I think it’s very important to understand what are the main forces that are playing in these contexts.”

He is interested in the current debate on whether the hijab, the Muslim headscarf, should be worn in Irish schools and cautions against the issue being used to create division.

“My own sense is that if an individual wishes to associate publicly with a faith, that’s the right of that individual to do that, whether he’s a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim. That is, to me, something which is important,” he says.

But he says that people should not be forced to wear the hijab. “To go from there to an imposed process by forces in society, to me is unacceptable. It’s got to be the choice of the individual who wishes to associate with his faith or her faith. I have great respect for any individual who wants in the right way to be associated with his own faith. I accept that totally and I would never challenge it.”

He is a fervent believer in pluralism in education and thinks people must be taught in early childhood to see those from different backgrounds as equals.

“It’s an issue of equity of people in society,” he says, adding that he has been encouraging governments in developing countries to provide for equality of opportunity in their constitutions. “So governments have to answer to the question: ‘Are you governing in an equitable manner?’ ”

And how is his advice being received?

“Sensitively,” he says. “But it is essential.”

IN THE 1960S he founded the Nation Media Group in Africa, and the Daily Nation now has more than four million readers. Street vendors rent out the paper so that each copy is read by 12 or 13 people, he says.

The Aga Khan is now trying to create a network of correspondents across sub-Saharan Africa “so ultimately we’re able to become the African information enterprise for Africa, because that doesn’t really exist in Africa. It’s very much a regional resource or a national resource.”

Africa is in a learning process with “fragile democracy, fragile economics”, but ultimately he has great hope for the continent. “The African leadership I know is acutely aware of the necessity to move forward in these critical areas for national development. That wasn’t the case in the 1960s and 1970s.”

Inevitably, talk turns to Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe’s controversial re-election.

“I’m not a politician, but what we are talking about again is every African having the right to aspire to a better quality of life. And that is the goal of good government: to improve the quality of life of the individual in society,” he says. “If this particular government is failing, then that government is answerable for failing.”

He points to the recent crisis in Kenya and says the non-governmental bodies and faith institutions played a key role in resolving that conflict.

Since he left Ireland on Monday, the Aga Khan has embarked on a seven-day visit to the UK to mark his golden jubilee. In 1931, his grandfather’s 50th anniversary was celebrated by Ismailis sending him his weight in gold. On another occasion he received his weight in diamonds.

These weighing ceremonies were a widespread means of fundraising by religious groups and local rulers in colonial India and other areas. Ismailis still pay a proportion of their income back to the community, but needless to say the current Aga Khan has never been weighed in gold. Nor would he wish to be.

Source: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/newsfeatures/
2008/0705/1215184125694.html

Information on Aga Khan Academy, Mombasa

The Aga Khan Academy, Mombasa is part of a network of schools, called Aga Khan Academies, dedicated to an international level of excellence in every facet of education.

The Academy offers a broad, multidisciplinary education with an emphasis on the humanities. Students study a range of subjects that include, but are not limited to, history; literature; the general sciences comprising physics, biology and chemistry; philosophy and ethics; the mastery of a foreign language and the study of foreign cultures; comparative religion; the history, theory and criticism of the arts; and the social sciences, including political science, government and global economics.

Admission is based solely on merit. It is also means-blind - that is, selection is based not on the ability to pay but on merit determined by a wide range of criteria, including academic strengths and overall potential.

Curriculum

The Aga Khan Academy, Mombasa is implementing the Primary Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate system. The Programme, for students aged 3-11 in grades 1-6, focuses on the development of the whole child, addressing social, physical, cultural and ethical requirements, while giving students a strong foundation in all of the major areas of knowledge. In January 2005, The Aga Khan Academy (Junior), Mombasa, received “Candidate School” status from the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO).

Students in the Middle Years Programme, for ages 11-16, are immersed in a challenging and enriching educational environment which emphasises the mastery of basic skills, the ability to analyse and think critically, the development of self-discipline and good work habits, the acquisition of computer literacy and progressive skill development. The Programme offers Key Stage 3 (Grades 7-9) and the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) (Grades 10-11). IGCSE, one of the Cambridge International Examinations, is internationally recognised as equivalent to the UK GCSE and the International GCE O level examinations. IGCSE (core or extended curriculum) is taken in five subject groups: languages, humanities, sciences, mathematics and creative, technical and vocational. In due course, Key Stage 3 and IGCSE will be replaced with the Middle Years Programme (MYP) of the IBO.

At the Senior School, the Academy is incorporating the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (DP) for students aged 16-18. This is a two-year course of study that prepares students for university. All DP students study languages, a social science, an experimental science, mathematics and an arts subject. Each student’s performance is evaluated by independent examiners and measured by his or her levels of knowledge and skills relative to set standards applied to all schools.

The Aga Khan Academy, Mombasa is an IB World School. It began introducing the IB Diploma Programme in September 2005. The IB has become the curriculum of choice at international schools and academies worldwide. It is accepted by over 1700 universities around the world, including those in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, continental Europe, Australia and in many other regions. The IB has come to be known not only for academic excellence but also for actively encouraging pluralism and community service.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org

Media Advisory - Ismaili Muslim Youth Reflect on ‘Knowledge Society’ at National Awards Gala

“In a Knowledge Society, the most productive investments we can make are
investments in education.”

His Highness the Aga Khan, Dhaka, Bangladesh, May 2008

CALGARY, July 2 /CNW Telbec/ - High-achieving students from the Ismaili Muslim Community across Canada will gather at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Calgary on Saturday, July 5th (6.30PM) to learn how participation in today’s Knowledge Society is essential for individual and community progress.

The Honorable Dave Hancock, Minister of Education of Alberta, will be the guest of honour and Dr. Tom Kessinger, Deputy Chairman, Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), will deliver the keynote address.

The occasion is the inaugural Canadian Ismaili Students Total Achievement Recognition (I-STAR) Awards Gala which aims to promote, recognize and celebrate excellence achieved in all areas of endeavor by top calibre Canadian Ismaili Muslim youth at the junior high, secondary, and post-secondary levels. This year’s National awards will recognize the achievements of 150 youth from across Canada who have been selected at regional I-STAR events in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto. This high calibre awards ceremony encourages students from Grade 9 to Post-Secondary to strive for and achieve excellence in academics, community service and leadership, athletics, arts and humanities, and science and technology.

“The theme of this first Canadian I-STAR Awards Gala is The Knowledge Society” said Shaukat Jiwa, Chairperson of the Aga Khan Education Board for Canada. “We recognize that we live in an age where human intellect, imagination and ingenuity have become the currency of choice and one that highlights the necessity of lifelong learning and the search for excellence. We hope that our youth will become contributors in the 21st century Knowledge
Society and will use this knowledge in a manner that is consistent with the ethics and values of our faith.”

The Canadian I-STAR Awards Gala is a national initiative commemorating the Golden Jubilee of His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan as the Imam (spiritual leader) of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims.

The Ismaili Muslims are a community of ethnically and culturally diverse peoples living in over 25 countries around the world, united in their allegiance to the Aga Khan as the 49th hereditary Imam and direct descendant of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Further information on the Ismaili Muslim Community may be found at www.theismaili.org.

For further information: Ms. Sameera Sereda, (403) 604-2770; Mr. Al-Noor Nenshi Nathoo, (403) 714-7436

Ummah Cum Laude; Remapping The World

Through The Leadership Of The Aga Khan, An Ambitious 17-Acre Redevelopment In Suburban Toronto Will Bring Two Global Cultural Institutions To Canada Supporting Art And Culture In The Ummah, Or Muslim Diaspora.; As A Jury Member For The 2007 Aga Khan Award For Architecture, Architect And Professor Brigitte Shim Discusses The Importance Of This Unique Awards Program.

Atop a hill overlooking the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) in Toronto’s Don Mills suburb, construction is about to begin on an important cultural precinct. Funded by His Highness the Aga Khan, two significant cultural institutions will stand on the former site of a late-Modernist office building. One will help support Toronto’s 40,000 Ismaili Muslims, while the other will comprise a museum whose mission it is to improve cultural understanding of the Muslim world.

The Aga Khan had already owned the eastern portion of the site and was planning on building the Ismaili Centre and Jamatkhana (community prayer hall) when the late-Modern Parkindesigned Bata International Headquarters building came up for sale in 2002. This offered the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) an opportunity to expand their site for the purposes of building a museum housing an extensive collection of Islamic art, as well as a pluralistic educational centre to study Muslim culture. While it is unfortunate that the Bata building was unable to be saved from demolition, its replacement will undoubtedly be of far greater significance to both the cultural and architectural history of Toronto. Fifty years ago, very few Muslims lived in nearby communities like Flemingdon and Thorncliffe Park. Today, these communities represent one of most significant Muslim populations in Canada. Forsaking the chance to build exemplary contemporary architecture celebrating the ethnic and cultural diversity of Toronto for the sake of preserving the Bata building would have truly been a wasted opportunity in the architectural history of the city, and indeed the country.

The 17-acre site bounded by Wynford Drive, Eglinton Avenue, the DVP and Don Mills Road will be transformed by the addition of two significant projects: the Ismaili Centre and Jamatkhana designed by Mumbai-based Charles Correa Architects, and the Aga Khan Museum, designed by architect Fumihiko Maki of Maki & Associates in Tokyo. Inserted between each of these 10,000-square-metre projects will be a series of landscaped gardens designed by the Beirut-based landscape architect Vladimir Djurovic, who received a 2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture for his Samir Kassir Square project in Beirut. And overseeing construction of the site are Moriyama & Teshima Architects of Toronto, the architects of record. Collectively, the construction costs for the two buildings will exceed $200 million. The Ismaili Centre will be completed by late 2010, with the Aga Khan Museum completed approximately one year later.

Including Eastern-influenced formal gardens and over two kilometres of walking trails open to the public, Wynford Park will contain five reflecting pools, enclosed gardens and waterfalls. Visitors will be shielded from the noisy DVP and Eglinton Avenue traffic with numerous places for contemplation. Along the southern edge of the site, the development group is in the process of discussing with the City of Toronto as to how best manage the City-owned property abutting the site. In return for relocating some of the existing fencing along the property line, the AKDN will maintain the adjacent City property, as well as upgrade its plantings and grading. Both the selection of plant material and safety concerns regarding public access to the site during non-daylight hours and the winter season are currently being discussed with the City to ensure that issues of maintenance and safety are properly addressed. Even a nearly inaccessible traffic island will be upgraded and maintained so that the impact of Wynford Park’s landscape can extend as far into the community as possible.

Wynford Park crystallized the development process in 2004 through the creation of the Imara Development Group, a project management arm engaged to oversee the construction of both institutions in addition to the landscape architecture. Although the construction costs will be underwritten by the AKDN, Wynford Park will require distinct, ongoing financial commitments. Since the Ismaili Centre is a community facility, the Toronto Ismaili community will be responsible for fundraising its many ongoing activities. As the museum is a cultural enterprise, it will be seeking ongoing patronage to support its functions through the establishment of endowment funds, exhibition donations and membership revenue from the community at large–similar strategies to what most other public museums pursue in order to remain viable.

While the AKDN had developed their functional and programmatic requirements for the site, they hired Shamez Mohammed as their representative to coordinate the project, essentially a turnkey operation to be delivered over to the AKDN after its completion. Before working for the AKDN, Mohammed, a civil engineer with an MBA, had worked for Mercer Management Consulting in Toronto for several years. After the Gujarat earthquake in 2001, he took a paid sabbatical from his firm and moved to India for 14 months to establish the Mumbai operations of Focus Humanitarian Assistance, an international disaster management agency. After returning to Canada, Mohammed became a volunteer for the Aga Khan, eventually resigning from Mercer in 2004 to become the Project Coordinator for the Ismaili Centre and Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, in addition to coordinating two ongoing Ottawa projects supported by the AKDN–the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat and the Global Centre for Pluralism.

The significance of building a pluralist precinct devoted to education, culture, religion and community devoted to Ismailis and the Muslim world with the intent of engaging a dialogue with the general population cannot be overstated. His Highness the Aga Khan is not only a religious leader for the 15 million Ismailis around the world, but a leader concerned with strengthening the contemporary identity of Muslim culture in the Ummah, or the Muslim diaspora. Building such an ambitious project as Wynford Park, the Aga Khan has taken a clear position regarding the study and dissemination of contemporary Muslim culture in the global sphere, and not just for the benefit of the Toronto Ismaili community. In a speech delivered at a roundtable held at the Louvre in Paris last October, the Aga Khan noted the challenges associated with manoeuvring the identity of his Toronto Aga Khan Museum within a cultural framework that is difficult to generalize in a diverse, complex and pluralistic world. When it comes to generalizing the Islamic world, these sensitive challenges become overlaid with misunderstandings associated with issues such as religious wars, terrorism and regional strife–elements that are not representative of the vast majority of Muslims. Therefore, the Aga Khan’s creation of a contemporary cultural and religious precinct in the suburbs of Toronto is incredibly challenging but also extremely vital, if both the Muslim and general Canadian populations are to learn about themselves and each other.

Before beginning the deliberation process for the 2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA), our jury was asked to provide words reflecting any aspirations for this award program. In no particular order, I thought that it would be helpful to list these words: collaboration, education, excellence, sustainability, sensitivity to context, negotiations, changing the status quo, interventions, coherences, transformations, broader context, process, architectural ethnography, affective contribution, new models of urbanism, accretive urbanization, humane urban density, dialogic ummah, contemporaneity, translation and transition.

Prior to serving on the 2007 AKAA jury, I associated this award program with its admirable recognition of significant restoration projects throughout the Muslim world. I certainly did not link this award with contemporary buildings. I quickly learned that this, the tenth award cycle for the program, represents a 30-year commitment by His Highness the Aga Khan to architectural excellence and a desire to stimulate debate and reflection about the built environment. Once every three years, this award program provides a lens to view, understand and celebrate built work emerging from communities throughout the Islamic world. The projects reviewed for the 2007 award cycle leaves us with valuable lessons that can guide us toward new models of exemplary and meaningful contemporary works of architecture.

In the Western world, there is a great deal of attention paid to the look and image of buildings. Our architecture magazines reflect our speedobsessed societies mirrored through mega-projects and agitated skyscrapers. In our busy world, it is rare to take the time to reflect and better understand the powerful role building plays in shaping people’s lives and fostering community.

Rather than considering the winning entries of the 2007 AKAA as a homogeneous group, readers need to dig deeper and understand the pivotal role each project plays–in the words of the Aga Khan–”in changing the physical environment of the Islamic world enabling people of all backgrounds and faiths to live a better life.” Hopefully, the rest of the world will take notice of and learn to develop a greater understanding about the remarkable transformative work taking place many parts of the Muslim world. The following are some of the themes that I derived from my experiences as a member of the jury.

Remapping

Architecture fuses together poetic ideas, inert materials, physical site and social conditions. Architecture trades on its ability to touch and shape people’s lives in profound and meaningful ways. Around the world, no matter where it is being practiced, architecture is a complex discipline. Projects in the Islamic world have a rich architectural history and are burdened with an additional mandate to link and intertwine the past, present and future in meaningful and innovative ways. In January and June of 2007, I was honoured to be one of nine jury members invited to spend several days in Geneva, Switzerland deliberating over the ways in which built architecture impacts the Muslim world. Each jury member was required to do plenty of homework prior to arriving in Geneva, as several thick binders full of background information were sent to us beforehand. With 343 projects submitted, I became intimately aware of the enormous challenges and the hopeful opportunities of building in cities and towns like Koudougou, Beirut, Addis Ababa, Rada’, Bandar Seri Iskader, Singapore, Shibam, Nicosia and Radrapur. The Muslim world covers many continents, numerous climatic zones and specific regions of the globe. My experience on this jury has recalibrated my sense, inspiring me to remap my world.

Lateral Conversations

Most architecture award juries bring together architects to review photographic images of built work. Winning projects are selected based on the jury’s collective vision of architectural excellence. The 2007 AKAA program brought together five architects from around the world with an historian, an artist, a curator and a literary theorist to discuss, interpret and better understand the changing landscape throughout the Muslim world. During our numerous jury sessions, I was aware that architects were also painters and that curators were also poets and that everyone in the room was a teacher. We all listened and learned from the distinct voices around the table. The jury’s definition of architectural excellence was constantly being challenged, defined and redefined. The winning projects were not easily decided. They emerged from the breadth of our lateral conversations.

Deep Vertical Knowledge

No other architectural award program in the world sends independent reviewers to all parts of the globe to visit the jury’s shortlisted projects. No other architectural award program in the world brings these same reviewers to the jury to share with them their first-hand observations and insights about the physical and social context of the built work. The reviewers’ personal field experiences enable the jury to build a knowledge base for each and every project. The jury was made aware of the physical data, design and construction process, cultural contribution, construction schedule, cost, technical developments and social relevance for every shortlisted project considered. We discussed the design intent, the design process as well as the design results. We understood the varying role of the contractor, builders and craftsmen in each project, recognizing the many types of strong individuals and multi-headed client groups involved in commissioning work. We also understood the changing role of the architect and the complex nature of design teams required to realize any built project. This is fundamental to what I’ll call the vertical gathering of knowledge afforded by the AKAA program.

Building Community

How can architecture continue to play a vital role in building community throughout the Muslim world? The jury noted that many projects suffered by adopting a foreign or “borrowed” language of architecture that has matured over the last 50 years in the Muslim world, and also did not consider the communities that they served. As a counterpoint to this kind of placelessness, we need to support and celebrate ways of building community that emerge from a deep understanding of the local culture and building traditions while simultaneously addressing the layered complexities of our modern world. The discipline of architecture needs to nurture alternative models of practice that link and support committed designers to work directly with local communities to engage in projects that have the capacity to build and transform community.

Transforming the World

At no time in human history has the potential for architecture to shape our world been greater than today. The exemplary winning projects of the 2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture demonstrate to us that the human spirit is capable of transforming the world around us. While there is much to be learned from the built form of every winning project, the most valuable lesson lies in the understanding that architects can truly engage the Muslim world even before they start to design.

Brigitte Shim was a member of the 2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture jury. She is a principal of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects and an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture, Landscape & Design at the University of Toronto.

Source: http://www.canadianarchitect.com/issues/ISArticle.asp?story_id=159010084929&issue=03012008&PC=

Arif Alibhai - Volunteers distribute AIDS drugs in rural Uganda

U of A health researcher’s pilot project shows treatment on par with the best hospitals in east African nation.

Keith Gerein, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Sunday, January 13

When Arif Alibhai went to Uganda two years ago, he knew the job before him required both scholastic ability and a humanitarian touch.

The east African country had made substantial strides in combatting an AIDS epidemic, yet the progress was tragically uneven. Anti-retroviral drugs were available only at major urban hospitals, effectively denying treatment to patients in many rural areas.

The challenge offered to Alibhai, a University of Alberta health researcher, was to devise a system of dispensing medication in these remote districts.

The catch? Not only would any solution have to be low-cost and sustainable over the long term, it would also have to get around a critical shortage of doctors.

After tossing around a few ideas, Alibhai and his team came up with a plan: Instead of using health professionals to deliver drugs, the job could be done by unpaid community volunteers.

So far, the concept appears to be working.

Early results from a rural pilot project show treatment that is on par with the best Ugandan hospitals — a success story that could potentially serve as a model for drug programs in other AIDS-afflicted countries.

“The whole point was to look at the problem of how rural people access treatment,” said Alibhai, the senior project manager. “We asked ourselves, is it possible to move the treatment to where the people are?”

The site chosen for the pilot project was Kabarole, a predominately rural district on the western edge of Uganda where subsistence farming is the main activity.

A poor area, the prevalence of HIV among adults in Kabarole is 10 per cent, significantly higher than Uganda’s national rate of six per cent.

Such a disparity is a major concern, said Tom Rubaale, a member of the district health team. Since the disease kills people in their prime working years, it has a particularly devastating impact on poor families who depend on their strongest adults for income, he said.

That thin line between survival and starvation is one reason why rural AIDS patients in Kabarole often choose not to be treated. With anti-retroviral drugs offered only in the district capital, many people find it’s too far to go, said Joa Okech Ojony, a district health officer.

“It may take two days for people to make the trip, and they can’t afford that because it’s two days away from their livelihood,” he said. “Others are too frail to travel, and even if they weren’t, the costs of travel are prohibitive.”

The project team knew that bringing drugs into rural areas would solve only half the problem. The more critical conundrum was the lack of doctors. Without them, who would hand out the medication? Who would ensure patients took their pills twice a day on schedule? Who would keep watch for adverse effects?

In searching for answers, team members recalled a study done in Haiti on hard-to-reach patients and thought they could adapt the Caribbean program to sub-Saharan Africa.

“Anything we did had to be sustainable in the long term, meaning it had to be minimal cost,” said Alibhai, who joined Ojony and Rubaale in Edmonton recently at a global health conference. “We already knew that volunteerism is a big part of Ugandan culture, so calling on volunteers seemed to make sense.”

Working out of small rural health clinics — upgraded with funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research — community members were recruited and trained to take on many duties traditionally performed by health professionals.

The most important of these was to make weekly visits to patients to ensure they were taking their medication, and to check for any negative reactions.

After six months, the project has shown strong results. Ninety per cent of rural patients have had successful treatment outcomes, while the drug adherence rate has hovered near 99 per cent — achievements at least equal to the district hospital. Alibhai believes the program’s success is due, in part, to the personal touch patients receive from friends and neighbours assigned to check in on them. Volunteers can outperform doctors when it comes to offering social support, compassion and encouragement.

And success builds success. As people hear of positive results and see neighbours getting better, more patients sign up for the program. Women in particular are more likely to seek treatment when it is delivered in a community-based setting, said Walter Kipp, the U of A health scientist who supervised the project.

Researchers will continue to study the drug program over a two-year period. During that time, one of the biggest challenges will be to avoid complacency, both in keeping patients taking their drugs and keeping volunteers motivated to perform their duties, Kipp said.

Funding is another issue. More money is needed not only to keep the program going in Kabarole — where an estimated 16,000 people will need treatment in the next five years — but also to expand the project to other areas of Uganda and other countries afflicted with AIDS, Alibhai said.

“When you start working in global health,” he said, “you have to make a commitment to stay in it for the long term because the need is great.”

Source: http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/cityplus/
story.html?id=ef3c27f8-01ce-474a-9350-2f507e78305c&k=91768

Bridges that Unite: a way forward for Canada in the world

Victoria, British Columbia—February 1, 2008 - This evening, at the Victoria Conference Centre, the Honourable Beverley J. Oda, Minister of International Cooperation joined Aga Khan Foundation Canada’s Chief Executive Officer Khalil Z. Shariff along with local dignitaries and other guests to officially launch Bridges that Unite, a new, interactive exhibition showcasing our national ability to bridge the developed and the developing world.

The traveling exhibition invites visitors to consider Canada’s role in the world through the lens of a remarkable 25-year partnership with the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) in some of the world’s most isolated and impoverished regions.

“Bridges that Unite is an opportunity to explore what we’ve learned, to build on our experience and to chart a way forward for Canada and the world,” said Khalil Z. Shariff, CEO of Aga Khan Foundation Canada, which is presenting the exhibition. “Canada at its best has had a real impact in a way that is sensitive, thoughtful and sustained,” he said. “The exhibition draws on our rich experience in the developing world to spark a conversation about what Canada and Canadians can contribute to ensure a more peaceful, prosperous and pluralist world.”

“Over the years, as Canada has contributed to the work of the Foundation, we have seen the solid results achieved by the Foundation, often in extremely challenging environments,” said Minister Oda. “In many diverse ways, the partnership between Aga Khan Foundation Canada and the Government of Canada has been a long and successful one.”

Twenty-five years ago, Canada invested in an innovative partnership with the AKDN in northern Pakistan – one of the world’s poorest, most isolated and volatile regions. Since then, this partnership has grown in scope and depth and created a wealth of knowledge and practical experience that has had a ripple effect across Asia and Africa. Visitors to the exhibition will discover that, from Afghanistan to Zanzibar, a ring of chairs, in which people meet to discuss and find solutions to their problems, has become a symbol of lasting, positive change.

Embarking on a national tour following a two-week stop in Victoria, Bridges that Unite offers a vibrant, interactive space in which to explore some of the most pressing questions of the 21st century. Thought-provoking stories of initiatives spanning several continents are told through powerful images, evocative soundscapes and interactive, multimedia components.

This stimulating environment will also provide a compelling backdrop for lectures, workshops, and cultural events. Online discussions and exhibit highlights at www.bridgesthatunite.ca will allow visitors to continue the conversation as Bridges that Unite travels across Canada.

For more information on the Bridges that Unite exhibition including venues, dates and program details, please consult our website at www.bridgesthatunite.ca.

NOTES:

Aga Khan Foundation Canada (AKFC) is a Canadian international development organization, and an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network, founded in 1980. Working primarily in Asia and Africa, AKFC works to address the root causes of poverty.

The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) is a group of non-denominational development agencies founded by His Highness the Aga Khan, with wide-ranging mandates covering social, economic and cultural development.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Jennifer Morrow,
Aga Khan Foundation Canada
613.697.9532

Source: http://www.bridgesthatunite.ca/press-releases/