Blooming in Cairo - The $30-million park project was spearheaded by the Aga Khan
Moyez Kamani
From: S J <all.my.forw...@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 10:10 PM
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Blooming in Cairo - The $30-million park project was spearheaded by the Aga Khan Posted: 17 Jul 2008 11:50 AM CDT
Click above for photographs. Also check the video here. Written by John Feeney Photographed by Dana Smillie What strange power do plants, trees and splashing water exert upon us? Have you ever noticed how, from the moment you enter a garden, and for as long as you wish to stay, you are no longer quite the same person? In the presence of trees and flowers, a sense of peace embraces you. Yet strangely, while giving refreshment to body and spirit, the trees and flowers around you are completely silent. Is this a subconscious remembrance of "a paradise lost"? –snip– The $30-million park project was spearheaded by the Aga Khan, whose family ties to Cairo date back to its founding by the Fatimids in 969. A thousand years later, in November 1984, as part of his interest in inviting local residents to contribute to the modernization of the Muslim world, the Aga Khan called a conference entitled "The Expanding Metropolis: Coping with the Urban Growth of Cairo" to address the city's rapid population growth, the decline in the quality of its housing and associated problems. When the meeting concluded, the Aga Khan decided to give a park to the city as a substantive contribution. He had a vision of providing Cairo with a large, open public area with trees, flowers and running water, in the manner of a traditional Islamic garden, "which would enhance the life of local communities" and also serve as a case study for a variety of modern urban development challenges. A park, he thought, would be an ideal gift, if only enough space could be found in this teeming city of 17 million souls where, according to one report, the amount of green space per resident was only about 350 square centimeters—the area of a man's footprint. –snip– This article appeared on pages 12-17 of the July/August 2008 print edition of Saudi Aramco World. Complete at the source - Slide show          |
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Aid money should go to agencies doing the real work Posted: 17 Jul 2008 11:48 AM CDT Don Cayo, Vancouver Sun / Published: Thursday, July 17, 2008 The current foreign aid fad is to channel most money through recipient governments rather than the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that actually deliver most services in most poor countries. This wins the donors (Canada among them) high praise from the heads of those lucky governments who get the cheques. They like this policy a lot. But the people the money's supposed to help? No so much. –snip– ….a key cause of mass poverty is bad governance — incompetent, corrupt, sometimes even vicious. In other words, far fewer places would be poor if their governments could be trusted. So who wants to prop up their leaders with money for them to siphon off from its intended uses? –snip– Tom Kessinger, deputy chair of the Aga Khan Development Network, says his agency hasn't yet been seriously affected by this trend. The AKDN, which is substantially funded by the personal wealth of the Aga Kahn as well as his Ismaili Muslim followers around the world, still also gets support from many donor governments, including Canada. But Kessinger worries that the trend will inevitably take money away from agencies that have a solid track record for results. When it comes to results, NGOs are often better positioned than governments, and not only because they don't feel obligated to deal through recipient governments even when they're incompetent or corrupt. In my view, the AKDN, as just one example, deals far more effectively with the need to focus sharply and for the long term than does CIDA, the aid arm of the Canadian government. The first thing AKDN has done is to commit to development aid rather than — except in the direst emergency — mere stopgap relief, Kessinger told me. The second is to stay in for the long haul — a crucial strategy if improvements are ever to take root and grow strong enough to stand on their own. Third, it focuses on a relative handful of countries in just a few parts of the world. Granted, this is a more obvious choice for AKDN than for a donor government. While the Ismaili agency doesn't limit its aid to Muslims, it does confine itself to countries where Ismailis have cultural connections and sound knowledge of the social and political landscape.          |
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Aga Khan Academies: Expanding Access to Quality Education Posted: 17 Jul 2008 11:48 AM CDT Excerpt… Each Academy will incorporate a Professional Development Centre for teachers that focuses on professional development for teachers and curricular innovation at all affiliated institutions. Each Centre will function not only for the benefit of the Academy but extend modern teaching and learning methods to government and private schools locally and regionally. These efforts are underpinned by the International Academic Partnership, which brings together the worldwide resources of the Aga Khan Education Services, Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, USA, Aga Khan University's Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED) in Karachi, Pakistan, and the Schule Schloss Salem, in Salem, Germany. Since its founding in 1993, the IAP has linked over 400 schools in Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda and the United States.          |
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Have an excellent day.
Moyez
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