AKFC impact report

Yasmin is an X-ray technician at the medical centre in Booni, Pakistan. She traveled more than 1,000 km south to Karachi, to train in computer radiography.

Her medical centre also received new X-ray equipment, which provides faster and more accurate results. With her new skills and equipment, Yasmin can see – and help diagnose – more patients in a day.

Getting the diagnosis right saves time, resources, and lives.

Yasmin’s colleagues in other departments, like surgery and obstetrics, also completed training and received upgraded equipment.

More than 5,685 professionals like Yasmin and her colleagues were trained to improve their skills, from basic health care to specialized procedures.

Consolata is the deputy head teacher at Maji Maji primary school in Nachingwea, Tanzania.

Through an Aga Khan University training program, she learned new leadership skills and updated teaching techniques.

Consolata has been a teacher for 19 years. She now creates lesson plans that are more active, so that her students can learn by participating in class, instead of rote learning.

“I believe with a better education, they are able to lay the foundation for change,” she says. “Both in their lives… and for the whole of Africa.”

We trained more than 3,700 preschool and primary school teachers like Consolata, making their classrooms a richer place to learn and grow.

Zahida didn’t have the support she needed when she was pregnant. This motivated her to become the first midwife to serve her village of Maulabad, Pakistan.

Today, she makes house calls and runs a small clinic. But she does more than care for pregnant women and young children: she works to shift the local gender norms that put their health at risk.

In this conservative region, most couples live with the husband’s parents. They are the ones who usually make healthcare decisions for the whole family. Zahida visits them at home, to help them understand the importance of proper care before, during, and after childbirth.

As a role model for young girls in her community, Zahida is not only saving lives today. She is setting new standards for the women of tomorrow.

For Cholpan’s family, like many in the Kyrgyz Republic, agriculture is the main source of income – one that has been put at risk by climate change.

In her village of Dobolu, our local partners brought together a working group of 12 citizens to learn about environmental issues. They learned how they can take action to counteract the impacts of climate change.

Cholpan was elected to lead the group’s activities, including a project to construct a series of irrigation channels. As water becomes scarce in the region, the channels allow the community to direct the flow coming off the surrounding mountains. This evenly distributes water to irrigate crops and pasture.

Through similar community initiatives across Africa and Asia, 113,489 people now have new techniques to adapt to the changing climate.

A pilot program in Kenya launched a brighter future for preschool students and their caregivers.

Researchers at Aga Khan University in Kenya partnered with the University of Toronto to develop the program.

Under an experimental franchising model, daycare providers in Mlolongo, a poor neighbourhood in Nairobi, organized into a network. They learned about child development and small business management, with the support of local social workers.

Salome Mulandi, who lives in Mlolongo, began volunteering as a social worker for the project when she saw her 4-year-old daughter benefitting from improvements to her daycare.

This franchise model helps both caregiver and child. Children receive better care and caregivers earn a better living. The model is now being replicated in other parts of the city.

Khadija Ga’al entered AKFC’s fellowship program with the goal of someday becoming a project manager in the development sector.

She was placed with Aga Khan Foundation in Kenya. Here she worked to support programs in the country’s vulnerable coastal region.

“I have a lot of great mentors in this office,” says Khadija, who moved to Canada from Somalia as a child. “People I can go to, ask questions. People who have been doing this for 20 or 30 years.”

Khadija is one of 114 young Canadians who were placed overseas through this partnership. She says her 8-month fellowship confirmed her commitment to a career in global development. She looks forward to someday applying her new skills and knowledge to improve lives in her “other” home: Somalia.