Nowruz Award for Abangaan NGO

Posted on March 18, 2016

Contributed to WCHV by WCHV

Abangaan NGO: The recipient of “The Nowruz Prize” for the best civil society of the year 2016, in the category of “Natural Heritage”, for:

– Establishing itself as a non-governmental institution, dedicated to the preservation of natural heritage, environment, and especially water resources of Iran.
– Gathering a number of American- Canadian- and European-Iranian young activists working on the above subjects.
– Striving to elevate and expand public education on such subjects through setting up discussions among experts and professionals.
– Production of educational and informative videos on relevant subjects.

It is not a secret that there are grim and critical conditions for natural heritage in Iran There is also a continued intentional and non-intentional negligence of relevant authorities, who also block activist and NGOs to continue their work for the conservation of environment and national heritage. The situation has resulted in the formation of Abangaan NGO outside Iran by a number of experts and people who are interested in the field of environmental conservation and in bringing this subject to the attention of the public through optimal use of the available media. Although this organization is less than one year old, the members of this NGO have excelled in their cause despite the lack of financial and technical facilities.
Within the span of last six months, Abangaan NGO has been able to interview more than 20 experts, researchers in the field of environment who come from academic, political, cultural and artistic walks of life. These interviews have been compiled in a number of 26 minutes videos and have been broadcasted in Ofogh-e-Iran TV programs and later posted on the internet. Being of educational and analytical benefits, the videos have already attracted a vast number of audiences from all over the world and especially from Iran.
Their excellent work so far deserves much appreciation.

Sam Khosravifard (Msc. in Environmental management), is a PhD candidate in the field of natural resources science at University of Twente, in the Netherlands. Mr. Khosravifard has been working as a journalist since 1996, focusing on environmental issues of Iran. He has published more than one thousand articles and analytical reports regarding Iran’s natural and environmental issues. He is author of two books; “Persian Lion” and “Natural Heritage of Iran”, published by the Cultural Research Bureau.
As a consultant biologist, Mr. Khosravifard collaborated with “Conservation of Asiatic Cheetah and Its Habitats Project”. Through collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and The Department of Environment of Iran, he participated in the preparation of the second phase of the project. Mr. Khosravifard also taught ecotourism and wildlife/nature photography in specialized institutions.
During the last ten years, he has been working with more than five consulting companies in order to prepare environmental reports and documentations for decision makers of Iran.
Mr. Khosravifard is an experienced wildlife photographer. He also directed a documentary about the presence of raccoons in Iran titled: “Raccoon; an Intrusive Guest in Iran”. He currently lives in Toronto, Canada and is working on another documentary about the history of implementation of modern conservation in Iran.

Mr. Kambiz Ghafuri, an Iranian journalist living in Finland, has worked with and written reports for international media such as: Finnish Journal of Foreign Affairs (a publication of Finnish Institute of International Affairs), Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), AJAM TV in USA, Radio Zamaneh, Radio Kucheh. He is a member of Association of Iranian Journalists, SFJ, Suomen Freelance Journalistit (Finland), Association of European Journalists. In addition to producing independent TV programs and writing articles and participating in interviews relevant to political and social issues, he has been talking to important personalities in the Oral History Project, as well as covering artistic activities of Scandinavian societies such as the alternative documentary festival of Tempo in Sweden.

Iranian New Year Named: The Celebration of Mahasti Ganjavi

Posted on March 17, 2016

Contributed to WCHV by WCHV

Every year, on the advent of each Iranian New Year (which coincides with the beginning of spring), Pasargad Heritage Foundation (PHF) designates a name for the coming year that signifies a certain aspect of its mission. PHF is an organization established a decade ago outside Iran with the aim of preserving Iranian cultural heritage and has observed this name designation for the last 10 years. The main purpose is to emphasize on the priceless values of the ancient cultural heritage of Iran that are exposed to constant destruction due to intentional and accidental negligence of the relevant authorities in that country.

The coming New Year of the Iranian calendar has been named as the “Year of Mahasti Ganjavi”, to commemorate a Farsi-speaking courageous poetess of 900 years ago who thought and spoke about the very subject matters that are expressed today by great anti-discrimination women of our times.

She was born in Ganje, an Iranian city that now is located in Azerbaijan Republic, before the language of that area was turned into Turkish. Thus, she is now being introduced as an Azerbaijani poetess whereas all her poetry is in Farsi.

Unfortunately, all through history, religious zealots have banned the spread and publication of her poetry in as many ways as possible. And then, by the advent of the Islamic Republic in Iran, she has been officially been recognized as a non-Iranian poet and the Islamic government has not accepted even to co-apply, together with Azerbaijanis, for the registration of her name as a poetess of Farsi literature in the Intangible Heritage Index of UNESCO.

Proposed by Pasargad Heritage Foundation

International Day of Nowruz 2016

Posted on March 14, 2016

Contributed to WCHV by WCHV

International Day of Nowruz

Persepolis at Sunset – Nowruz 2015

Posted on April 8, 2015

Contributed to WCHV by WCHV

Photography by Iranian Artist Farzad Arian

Happy Nowruz

Posted on March 23, 2015

Contributed to WCHV by WCHV

Nowruz

(Nowruz 1394 video link click here)

Nowruz is first day of Spring and the beginning of the Iranian year. Nowruz is celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox, on 21st March or the previous / following day depending on where it is celebrated. Nowruz is celebrated and observed by Iranian people as well as several other countries across Asia including Afghanistan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan and many more. The new year starts at the moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator and equalizes night and day or exactly when the Earth has completed one cycle around the Sun.

The celebration has its roots in Ancient Iran. Due to its antiquity, there exist various foundation myths for Nowruz in Iranian mythology. The Shahnameh dates Nowruz as far back to the reign of Jamshid, who in Zoroastrian texts saved mankind from a killer winter that was destined to kill every living creature.In the Shahnameh and Iranian mythology, Jamshid is credited with the foundation of Nowruz. In the Shahnama, Jamshid constructed a throne studded with gems. He had demons raise him above the earth into the heavens; there he sat on his throne like the sun shining in the sky. The world’s creatures gathered in wonder about him and scattered jewels around him, and called this day the New Day or No/Now-Ruz. This was the first day of the month of Farvardin (the first month of the Persian calendar). On Nowruz, families gather together to observe the rituals and celebrate the beginning of the new year.

In addition, it is believed that originally the celebration was the holiest Zoroastrian festival, and Nowruz is believed to have been invented by Zoroaster himself, although there is no clear date of origin. Since the Achaemenid era, the official year has begun with the New Day when the Sun leaves the zodiac of Pisces and enters the zodiacal sign of Aries, signifying the Spring Equinox.

International Nowruz Day was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly, in its resolution A/RES/64/253 of 2010, at the initiative of several countries that share this holiday (Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, India, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan.

World Cultural Heritage Voices

Ancient Nowruz artifacts from the Sassanian Dynasty – 224 CE to 651 CE.

Nowruz during the Safavid Dynasty circa 1501 to 1722 and 1729 to 1736.