Tag: Afghanistan

International Affairs, Religion

Aziz Abu Sarah

by NPR Source of the Week

Azi Abu Sarah is the co-founder of  Middle East Justice Development Initiative Tours, a tour operator which “rejects the model of traditional consumer tourism … instead employing a new model of tourism based on clients, communities, and financial and environmental sustainability.”

He is also the co-founder of the education and development nonprofit InterAct. Abu Sarah formerly served as the co-executive director at the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University.

Abu Sarah is a National Geographic Explorer, a position which bestows grants from National Geographic for environmentally-conscious projects. He is also a TED Fellow. 

He is the author of Strangers, Neighbors, Friends, which aims to bridge divisions between religions, and Crossing Boundaries: Traveler’s Guide to World Peace, a manual on travelling responsibly in times of polarization.

Aziz Abu Sarah
Aziz Abu Sarah. TED 2014, The Next Chapter, March 17 – 21, 2014, Vancouver Conference Center, Vancouver, Canada. Photo by: Bret Hartman

Areas of Expertise: Middle East, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Afghanistan, Arab Spring, interfaith dialogue, world religions, Iran, peacebuilding/conflict resolution, responsible tourism, Syrian refugees

Location: Washington, DC (with frequent travel to Jerusalem)

Contact Information:
Email: azizabusarah@gmail.com
Phone: (301) 466-6259 (c), 703-349-1554 (office) 
Middle East Mobile: +972-52-427-1058
Twitter: @AzizAbuSarah

Heard on WAMU: For a complete list, click here.
9/11 Anniversary: Local Muslims Reflect On Changes, Good And Bad

Featured on Fox 5 News: The Expanding Middle East Protests

Last updated February 21, 2020

International Affairs

Margaret Zanger

by NPR Source of the Week

University of Arizona professor of practice Maggy Zanger focuses on Middle East journalism and is an affiliated faculty member of the UA Center for Middle Eastern Studies. She is the project director of the School of Journalism’s partnership with Nangarhar University in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, a three-year effort to develop a journalism department at the Afghan university.

She was the Iraq country director of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in Iraq for nearly two years, starting centers in Baghdad and Sulaimani to train Iraqi journalists to work for independent news media. Zanger was a faculty member at the American University in Cairo for nearly four years and the coordinator of the publications program of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University.

Zanger has developed several new global journalism classes at UA, including Media Coverage of International Crises, International Opinion Writing and Reporting the Middle East. She led students on an eight-week study abroad program in Egypt, funded by Fulbright, and has worked on developing other study abroad programs in the Middle East. She has also conducted research on the work attitudes of Iraqi journalists.

Zanger was also the faculty adviser to El Independiente, a student-produced publication that serves the city of South Tucson and is the only bilingual newspaper in the country produced by students in a real community on a regular basis. She also spearheaded the School’s border safety efforts which developed workshops for students on how to report safely along the border, and was a founder of the Border Journalism Network, which functions as a hub through which professionals, educators and their students can gather, develop and share knowledge to improve the quality of border reporting.

image

Professor of Practice at the University of Arizona

Areas of Expertise: Middle East & the Muslim World, Egypt, Iraq, Kurds, Kurdish and Iraqi Media Development, Conflict & Media

Location: Tucson, AZ

Contact Info:

Mobile: 520-661-2742

Email: zanger@email.arizona.edu, maggyzanger@gmail.com, maggyzanger@hotmail.com

Featured on Arizona Public Media: Iran, Iraq and U.S.