Browsing: Aga Khan

• The Aga Khan Foundation has launched a campaign to plant 1.5 million mangrove trees in Bagamoyo, Tanzania.
• The environment in Bagamoyo is worsening due to illegal tree harvesting that has already cleared over 5,636 hectares of mangrove forest.
• The campaign is part of the AKF’s trailblazing programmes in East Africa geared towards providing an environmentally sustainable future.

The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) is stepping up efforts to tackle negative impacts of climate change on the environment by planting 1.5 million mangrove trees along Africa’s Indian Ocean Coast. The green initiative is part of a network of projects in the pipeline under AKF’s long-term goal of creating a sustainable future for humanity globally.

The mangrove trees initiative, which is in response to climate change, was launched this May, in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. The campaign will be undertaken in Bagamoyo mangrove forest reserve, an ecosystem that borders the Saadani National Park.

Putting at

The project uses a comprehensive approach to combat cancer, involving communities and building capacity to over 400 community health care workers, and raising awareness by printing and distributing over 3,000 books and 5,000 Information, Communications and Education (ICE) materials.

“This project aims to complement the government efforts towards reducing cancer morbidity and mortality,” said Minister of Health Ummy Mwalimu.

“The government cannot single-handedly combat the growing burden of cancer, hence we commend TCCP for their innovation towards demonstrating the success of public-private collaboration to control cancer in the country,” she added.…

• Aga Khan Hospital will use the funding to support covid-19 pandemic response
• The funding will benefit hospital and outreach centres in Tanzania and Kenya
• Qualifying groups to receive care at no cost

Aga Khan Hospital will start offering quality care treatment to qualifying needy patients at no cost. The development comes thanks to EUR 2.3 million of grant funds issued to the Aga Khan Hospitals in East Africa (Tanzania and Kenya) by France, through the French Development Agency.

The funding has been issued through Proparco, the private sector financing arm of AFD Group, the French Development Agency to help increase access to health care services by boosting oxygen supply and supporting needy patients with quality care.

“France has made supporting health systems one of the priorities of its covid-19 pandemic response and has been at the forefront of the European and international efforts to support developing and emerging countries through …

The Aga Khan Health Services, the arm of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) that supports activities in health across Africa and Asia has announced a new partnership with the French Development Agency (Agence Française de Développement – AFD) to establish infectious disease units in two of Tanzania’s cities.

The two entities have signed a €300,000 grant agreement to establish Infectious Diseases Units (IDU) in Dar es Salaam and Mwanza. The Infectious Disease Units will offer full-fledged services, capacity building, infrastructure, and technology to enhance the quality of service delivery.

The grant will enable the strengthening of the current system to address challenges pertaining to infectious disease control management. It will enable the Aga Khan Hospital, Dar es Salaam to respond adequately to pandemics, such as COVID, including addressing issues pertaining to inadequate health infrastructure and capacity.

The grant of €300,000 is provided as part of the worldwide “COVID-19–Health in …

Rarely does any so-called “world leader” impress me. Some of them probably mean well in that superior, “I know better than you do what’s good for you” kind of way.

But in the big scheme of things, they are all elected for very short periods of time in office. Australian Prime Ministers get only three years at a time. US Presidents get four, maximum eight years.

In my view, that means they have little or no realistic chance to effect meaningful change for the good and leave their mark, unless they attempt something radical and reckless in the short term, pandering to certain interest groups.

Therein lies the problem. It takes much longer to effect meaningful change.

To cut to the chase, the list of world leaders, or former world leaders who served in my own adult life-time, whom I admire, is pretty short.

There are two:

• Nelson Mandela.

In 2005, the landscape of Cairo, Egypt’s biggest city changed for the good. Through the Aga Khan Trust for Culture AKTC), a new 30-hectare (74-acre) Al-Azhar park, undertaken in the historic district of Cairo was unveiled.

The site had become a large rubbish dump, which the AKTC began to gradually remove and clean in collaboration with the Egyptian Government and local community.

The leisure and recreational space created a “green lung” in the heart of the densely populated city. The project included the excavation and extensive restoration of the 12th Century Ayyubid wall and the rehabilitation of important monuments and landmark buildings in the Historic City. It also encompassed an extensive social development programme, including apprenticeship arrangements, housing rehabilitation, micro-credit and health care facilities.

Fifteen years later, the work of this park is getting another highlight with the release of a film, entitled Al-Khimyah, written and directed by Prince …

Two years ago, a 16-year-old student at the Aga Khan Academy Mombasa, Ziyaan Virji, turned his project – Affordable and Accessible Sanitation for Women (AASW) -into an internationally-recognized organization. This project would go on to receive major international recognition including the Diana Award for going above and beyond his everyday life to create and sustain positive change. The Diana Award, which celebrates its 20^th anniversary this year, is considered one of the highest accolades for social action or humanitarian efforts that a young person can receive.

Ziyaan has since partnered with several organizations to improve the access to sanitary health.   Through Operation Period, the organizations has helped over 1,000 girls to acquire access to menstrual hygiene across six different countries, including Kenya, Tanzania, Pakistan, India, Nigeria and the UAE.

Since 2014, May 28th has been recognized as Menstrual Hygiene Day, a day to bring awareness to menstrual inequity.

International

“It’s getting better by the day,” said Minal Shah, who has two children that attend the Academy. “It took us a few days, in the beginning, to settle with the new routines and now it’s become a new way of learning for all of us.”

Most Academy parents have found that the best way they can help their child during online learning is to help them organise their time wisely, provide a good workspace and be there for them for moral support.

“We have been providing a quiet and conducive study location for our child,” said Colin Williams, a parent of an Academy student. “Lots of hugs and emotional support are also included, along with additional art supplies, books, and study materials. We’re also answering any questions our daughter may have and we help her with researching.”

With schools being shut, daily routines have become less structured. This has encouraged …

I am confident that Africa will continue to be a leader, in drawing on its historical experience, in building resilient, pluralistic, economically-strong, and environmentally sound communities, rooted in solid values and communal support structures that societies in the West and elsewhere will admire and emulate in years to come.…

Facebook, the global internet giant has partnered with Kenya’s Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communications (GSMC), to launch “The Video Journalism Fellowship” an initiative that aims to bolster digital skills in journalism to increase the production of Kenyan stories captured through high-quality mobile video. The fellowship will achieve this by training qualified Kenyan storytellers on digital mobile journalism and attaching them to local Kenyan newsrooms.

The Video Journalism Fellowship is designed to equip Kenyan newsrooms with new digital media resources while training digital, mobile & video storytellers for six months through a real-life immersion into the practice of journalism and by a rigorous training offered by GSMC.

Storytellers who apply to The Video Journalism Fellowship will be selected by the Aga Khan University through a rigorous application process which will see 15 fellows selected for the first cohort of the program. The selected fellows will then be …