Domestic

The Foundation also supports the restoration of two sculptures in Versailles, France, cathedral church in Strasbourg, mosque, Orthodox and Catholic churches in the capital

Executive Director of Heydar Aliyev Foundation Anar Alakbarov interviewed by APA

- Five years have passed since the establishment of Heydar Aliyev Foundation. How the initiative to establish such a Foundation appeared and what was its aim?

- Life of Heydar Aliyev, who has gone to history of the 20th century Azerbaijan as a symbol of statehood, everlasting love and service to the Motherland and people, serves as an example to every citizen. This person of genius paid attention to and took care of all classes of the society, attached special importance to the issues of strategic importance for the sake of the future of the people and considered it necessary to bring up the young generation in this spirit and with this goal. The aim of establishing Heydar Aliyev Foundation was to continue the ideas, goals of the national leader. The projects implemented under the leadership of the President of Heydar Aliyev Foundation Mehriban Aliyeva aim to keep alive, continue Heydar Aliyev’s thoughts and ideas, philosophy and ideology. The past five years showed that Heydar Aliyev Foundation is moving towards its intentions and goals, wins confidence of the society by playing important role in the social life and makes its contributions to the development of modern Azerbaijan.

- What spheres does the Foundation’s activity cover? What activities have been carried out, what projects have been implemented within this period?

- The activity of Heydar Aliyev Foundation is broad and multisided. The projects aim to develop education and health systems, culture, promote our country abroad, protect our cultural heritage and improve the well-being of the people. Much attention is paid to construction of new education establishments meeting the modern standards, reconstruction of historical, cultural facilities, establishment of museums and museum centers, overhaul of religious temples, promotion of our rich culture, spread of Azerbaijan’s truths, development of social life and environmental security. The Foundation plays an active role in the social life as a public organization, and relies on its potential and full support; bring together like-minded persons and direct the common efforts and activity to the proper course. Taking into account the projects implemented by the Foundation in various spheres, we will witness great share of the reliable partners in the common work. This is natural, because Heydar Aliyev Foundation functions relying on the support of the charitable people. The Foundation has become the hope of people as a result of the activity basing on humanity, charity and nobility. Lots of letters sent to the Foundation every day prove this.

- Education is one of the spheres, to which the Foundation pays much attention. What is your activity in this field based?

- Equal education opportunities in Azerbaijani society, young generation’s education, and the country’s integration into the world education system are the priorities of Heydar Aliyev Foundation that implements programs and projects aiming to develop education since its establishment. Project “New school for developing Azerbaijan” is one of the great projects implemented by the Foundation in the field of education. This project was supported by a number of organizations and public and construction of schools began in all regions of Azerbaijan in a short period of time. 283 new schools were built in various regions of the republic within the framework of the project. This is a serious change in the lives of over 75,000 pupils gaining the opportunity to study in new conditions, on the level of modern standards. If now a pupil living in the remote mountainous village participates in the republic Olympiad through the Internet, this is the first fruits of the work done. The project continues. The working group conducts monitoring in various regions of the republic, determines the schools in need of repair or reconstruction. Every year the project “Support for education” provides first-form schoolchildren of martyrs’ families, IDP families and low-income families with bags and school supplies. The scope of the project extended and covered all the first-form pupils in 2008. A lot of textbooks, training aids, books of the world literature presented to higher schools and vocational schools within the framework of the project aim to bring up Azerbaijani youth with broad outlook. The schools facing lack of visual aids have been provided with 140 kinds of posters, 1.4 million visual aids have been presented to all education establishments of the country, this serves to improve the level of education. The project “Support for education” is also being implemented beyond the country. The school destroyed by the earthquake in Muzaffarabad city of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, where now over 650 pupils study, was built within the framework of this project of Heydar Aliyev Foundation. Kindergartens are being reconstructed in line with modern standards. 11 kindergartens have already been opened within the framework of the projects realized by the Foundation. These kindergartens have been supplied with modern equipment, training aids – posters, multimedia discs, games etc.

- Care for children is one of the priorities of the Foundation. In this respect, we can mention the Program “Development of children’s home and boarding schools”. Has the Program given impetus to the serious change in the lives of children without parental care?

- The main aim of the program is to offer quite different conditions for such children, to create family atmosphere for them. The continuous visits of the Foundation President Mehriban Aliyeva and other employees made serious changes in the children’s homes, boarding schools. We have achieved fundamental changes in the social state, education system of 31 children’s establishments. Holidays are organized for the children without parental care, summer camps are set up for them. Engagement of children in a number of sport societies, circles help eliminate such problems. Construction of the building attached to the kindergarten #1 in Nizami district, hostels established in several regions help to solve housing problem of the girls over 18. Heydar Aliyev Foundation concerns itself with the fate of those brought up in children’s homes, participates in significant moments of their lives, their weddings and helps the newly-wed.

- There are cultural, particularly mugham projects among the projects implemented by the Foundation…

- Mugham forming throughout the centuries is experiencing its renaissance period today. Mugham is a traditional music of Azerbaijan and was included in UNESCO Non-Material and Verbal Masterpiece list. Popularization and supporting the development of mugham in terms of protection of the cultural heritage is an active direction of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation’s activity. The projects carried out now create opportunities to protect and to develop our brilliant culture, to take own place in the civil world and to introduce our people. One of the first achievements in this field is the release of “Garabagh singers” album, which contains the performances of 24 mugham virtuosos. Due to the attention and efforts made by Mehriban Khanum, professional experts were involved in the working process and old tapes were recovered and introduced to the lovers of music.

The Foundation published also “The Mugham Encyclopedia”, which creates full view of the mugham heritage introducing the creative works of virtuosos and young singers, mugham destgahs and other works for the first time. The Foundation supports the mugham contests and festivals, as well as old mugham singers and young talents. The International Mugham Center was opened in Baku and Mugham Center in Aqjabedi and the musical school is constructed in Aghdash under the auspices of the Foundation. The Foundation gives attention to the people, who made great contribution to the development of contemporary culture, and released albums of mugham masters Alibaba Mammadov, Habil Aliyev and Arif Babayev. The album of well-known pianist and composer Rafig Babayev, who was killed as a result of Armenian terror, is contributed to the popularization of the musical culture and embodied the esteem to the grievous losses of our people, who faced with terror tragedies.

- Your activity is not limited to the national culture only.

- We are working not only for introducing of Azerbaijani culture to the world, but for making our people familiarized with the world culture as well. The Foundation is working together with the Polish embassy on several projects to declare the Year of Chopin in 2010. Shostakovich’s 100th anniversary was marked in Baku under the auspices of the Foundation and International Rostropovich festivals became a tradition. M. Rostropovich is our compatriot and the Foundation prepared the album dedicated to his life and creative work. Our musical albums were presented at the international festivals and exhibitions and won the first prizes. The Foundation is also giving attention to the world cultural heritage and it supports the restoration of two sculptures in Versailles, France, cathedral church in Strasbourg, Orthodox and Catholic churches in Baku, alongside with the local historic and cultural monuments and mosques.

- There are thoughts in the Azerbaijani society everyone can be benefited from the Foundation’s care about the health problems. The letters addressed to the Foundation confirm that.

- An important work has been done for the modernization of the health system of Azerbaijan in recent years. Medical centers were supplied with modern equipments and medical service was improved. The Heydar Aliyev Foundation is contributing to the reconstruction of medical centers and children health centers and their supply with the modern equipments; inviting the foreign specialists to the local clinics; organizing the trainings and exchange of the doctors and working with the leading health centers and medical companies of the world. Dialysis and endoscopic equipments presented to the Foundation by Fresenius Medical Care, Karl-Storz and Servier are implemented successfully in the medical centers of the country. The Heydar Aliyev Foundation receives hundreds of letters every day about the health problems of the people. Of course, we can’t answer every letter, but we try to be attentive to the health problems of the citizens. We pay more attention to the problems of the families of martyrs, refugees and displaced persons and poor people, and consider it necessary to help just these people at first. Nearly 10000 people addressed the Foundation over the past five years received treatment and 763 people were operated on at the various hospitals of Azerbaijan and more that 100 patients were sent to foreign countries to receive treatment there. “Care for the diabetic children” was one of the first projects, which is carried out at present and supply the diabetic children under 14 with necessary medicines. The Center of Thalassemia will create opportunity to use the modern treatment methods in the country. The center will make significant progress in the treatment and prevention of blood diseases in the republic.

- How does the Foundation establish its international relations? What international organizations do you work with? What spheres does this cooperation cover?

- Direct relations established with the European and international donor organizations enable us to develop our activity outside of Azerbaijan. The transparent activity of the Foundation contributes to its positive image as an organization. The financial activity of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation was examined and highly appreciated by “Ernst & Young” international audit organization. The number of organizations working with us uses the experience of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and carry out the analogical projects. The Foundation has representations in the United States, Russia, Turkey and Romania. The representations are trying to take active part in the social life of those countries. I would like to underline the activity of Moscow office of the Foundation particularly. The representation is playing important role in the implementation of cultural and social projects. The Azerbaijani school in Moscow was supplied with necessary technical equipments and its library received the Azerbaijani publications. The Heydar Aliyev Foundation is working with UNDP, UNFPA, UNESCO, ISESCO, US-based Vital Voice non-governmental organization. The Foundation supports the international conferences taking place in Azerbaijan and abroad. The joint international conferences organized together with UNESCO, ISESCO, Washington Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Latin Culture, the Organization of the Islamic Conference Youth Forum, are contributing to the establishing of cross-culture dialogue and partnership, as well as introducing Azerbaijan in the world.

- What measures does the Foundation take to inform the international community about the destruction of Azerbaijani historic and cultural monuments by Armenians in the occupied territories?

- Informing the international community about the realities of Azerbaijan is one of our main targets. The president of the Foundation gives a special importance to this issue and huge work has been done in a short time. The collection of “Realities of Garabagh” was the first project in this field and it was translated to several languages. The joint project with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan was developed with the publication of “War against Azerbaijan: Targeting Cultural Heritage”. The book contains list of the cultural resources in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, maps, as well as video-materials about the previous and present conditions of the historic and cultural monuments in the occupied territories. The Foundation organizes the remembrance ceremonies abroad to pay tribute to the victims of Khojaly genocide and to inform the international community about this tragic event. The Heydar Aliyev Foundation sends materials to the diplomatic missions of Azerbaijan abroad. The number of projects is increased year by year. The Foundation is extending its activity and it relies on the support of the people as it was five years ago.

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