Heydar Aliyev Foundation’s activities becomes part of history of contemporary Azerbaijan: executive director - PHOTO

Trend News: On May 10, 2009, the Heydar Aliyev Foundation marks the 5th anniversary of its establishment. Undoubtedly, the activity of the Foundation has become a part of the history of Azerbaijan in a short period. How do you assess the activity of the Foundation during this period?

Anar Alakparov: The Heydar Aliyev Foundation was established in honor of the memory of National Leader Heydar Aliyev, whose life and activities is a worthy example for us. Heydar Aliyev was a phenomenal person. Virtually every area of our life was included into his attention and care. The range of his activities was unlimited. Heydar Aliyev had good knowledge in all spheres of life at a high professional level, and it enabled him to manage successfully the social and cultural development.

The Heydar Aliyev Foundation under the leadership of Mehriban Aliyeva, President of the Foundation, realizes ideas of the outstanding figure with great faith, implements large-scale projects aimed at preserving national-spiritual values, promoting our culture, supporting programs and activities, ensuring the development of different spheres, as well as promotes Azerbaijan's international image. The activities of Foundation in these areas, which are appreciated by citizens, have become part of Azerbaijan's contemporary history.

Q: Dozens of projects have been implemented in the spheres of education, health, cultural heritage and many others thanks to creative activity of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation. What are the priority activities of the Foundation for the near future?

A: To implement a project in any sphere it is necessary to develop exact actions and collect basic data to assess the work. Therefore, after sanctioning a project we create special working groups to study and monitor the situation, and aftermath we take practical measures to implement the tasks. To remove the urgent problems at the very beginning of our activities we defined a number of priority directions - education, health, culture, sports, social and others spheres

Over five years, the Heydar Aliyev Foundation has successfully implemented large-scale projects in those areas, established cooperation with authoritative organizations, and held conferences and festivals in Baku. The Foundation continues its work to improve the education system with its further integration into the international education system, to help people in need of special care, to preserve national and spiritual values, to inform the international community about Azerbaijani realities, etc.

Q: The International Mugam Festival was held in Azerbaijan at the initiative of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation to popularize Azerbaijan's culture. Azerbaijani mugam was included into the UNESCO List of masterpiece of oral and non-material heritage of the humanity. What can you say in this connection?

A: Inclusion of Azerbaijani mugam into the List of masterpiece of oral and non-material heritage of the humanity in 2003 has become an historical event in Azerbaijan's culture. The art of mugam has deep roots in the cultural tradition and history of the Azerbaijani nation. Azerbaijan is the only country, which possesses mugam opera, symphonic mugam and even jazz-mugam.

The Foundation pays a specific attention to maintenance and development of mugam in our country and its propaganda worldwide. For this purpose the Heydar Aliyev Foundation has implemented a range of interesting and relevant projects, including the establishment of the International Mugam Centre. This mighty monument to mugam, which has played an invaluable role in establishing of Azerbaijani music, was erected in the National Park of Baku. The monument was erected in the form of tar - the ancient national music instrument. The Foundation produced musical album Karabakh khananda, which comprised fragments of mugam by 24 masters, and presented in the UNESCO headquarters in Paris in 2005. The Encyclopedia of mugam is another edition of the Foundation which gives the whole flavour of our mugam heritage.

In 2005 and 2007, the Heydar Aliyev Foundation held mugam contests in Baku. The International festival "World of mugam" in March 2009 has become an event, which advanced Azerbaijani mugam in the world arena and assisted it to become an element of culture of the world significance. The festival gave the whole flavor of mugam to the world community.

Thanks to incessant efforts and invaluable contributions of President of Heydar Aliyev Foundation Mehriban Aliyeva in the development of maintenance of mugam, this ancient musical tradition of the Azerbaijani nation, has taken worthy place in the treasury of music culture.

Q: What are the Foundation's action plans in the international arena?

A: The Foundation is extending its activities abroad. The Foundation's representations are functioning in the United States, the Russian Federation, Romania and Turkey. Being committed to basic objectives of the Foundation, our representatives implement projects of cultural and social orientation: visit orphanages, boarding schools, nursing homes; provide the necessary assistance to people in need of special care, hold commemoration meetings of prominent scientific and public figures of Azerbaijan, exhibitions and concerts, which reflect the culture and history of the Azerbaijani people. All these develop contacts among peoples and among nations.

I want to highlight the activities of the Foundation's representation in the Russian Federation. This is the first representation of the Foundation, set up outside of Azerbaijan. Headed by Leyla Aliyeva, the representation establishes a close relationship with public schools, especially with the Moscow School No.157 with Azerbaijani ethno-cultural component, provides the necessary technical equipment and teaching aids. The representation pays specific attention to disabled and children, who were deprived of parental care, implements various arrangements and celebrations during holidays. A group of children being brought up in boarding schools N46 in St. Petersburg and their teachers visited Azerbaijan at Leyla Aliyeva's initiative in August 2008. The representation offered every facility to these children, so that they could visit picturesque territories of our country and got familiarizion with our cultural and historical monuments. One of the main activities of the representation is the work with youths. Azerbaijani clubs have been created at universities in Russia. Leyla Aliyeva visits different provinces in Russia to extend the activities of the representation, as well as get familiarized with challenges of Azerbaijanis and students and takes certain measures to remove their problems and establishes cooperation with local organizations.

In February 2008, the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and the Russian National Library signed an agreement on cooperation during Leyla Aliyeva's visit to St.Petersburg. The agreement provided basis for further exchange of edited productions.

One of the main achievements of the Foundation abroad is the construction of a secondary school building for girls in Pakistan. The school for girls in Pakistan was damaged aftermath of an earthquake in the territory of Rar in Muzaffarbad city, which has caused human victims on Oct. 8, 2005. The new school, which was constructed in a short period, was provided with modern equipment and visual aids, including editions about Azerbaijan.

The Heydar Aliyev Foundation participates in rehabilitation of culture monuments common to all mankind. In 2007 the Foundation restored two monuments included in the list of world heritage, which are exhibited in a park of the Versailles Palace in Paris. It was damaged under the impact of time and climatic conditions.

The Foundation closely cooperates with UNDP, UNFPA, UNESCO, ISESCCO, American non-governmental humanitarian organization Vital Voice and several influential international organizations and foundations.

Under cooperation with UNDP the Foundation realized a project to ensure access of blind and people with poor eyesight to information and communication technologies. Particularly, ICT-class, audio-library, education center, as well as records studio to translate the library fund into audio-format have been established in the Republican boarding school for blind and people with poor eyesight in Narimanov district of Baku. Currently we build together with UNDP and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies of Azerbaijan the similar center for physically handicapped people in Ganja.

The Heydar Aliyev Foundation held several conferences, forums and symposiums in Baku, which promoted development of international relations and propaganda of values of the Azerbaijani people.

Q: The Foundation attaches considerable attention to children in need of special care. Tens of orphanages have been renovated and provided with advanced equipment. What are further action plans in this direction?

A: Care of children deprived of parental guardianship is on focus of Heydar Aliyev Foundation President Mehriban Aliyeva. She frequently visits orphanages and boarding schools, takes interests in children's problems, their living conditions and education. At present employees of the Foundation visit orphanages and boarding-schools, meet with children, and organize festivities and contests.

Under the Development of orphanages and boarding-schools program the Foundation overhauled and provided with advanced equipment of 31 childish establishments, build additional subsidiary buildings, improved communal conditions. Many orphanages and boarding-schools have been provided with computers, libraries were opened and supplied with necessary textbooks. To organize efficiently the leisure of children summer camps are built and renovated. The Foundation supplies necessary tools to musical schools functioning at orphanages. The Foundation also provides for participation of children at international contests organized in foreign countries, as well as offer broad opportunities to enable children grown-up in childish establishments of different countries to visit Azerbaijan to get familiar with history and rich culture of the country.

Q: What work does the Heydar Aliyev Foundation do to inform the international community about the Azerbaijani reality and truth of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh?

A: It is one of priority directions of the Foundation's activities. The goal-directed work in this direction commenced in 2005, when the Foundation developed www.azerbaijan.az portal to spread the Azerbaijani realities and propagate our moral and material values. It is a unique portal in the country for its volume, content and coverage.

Major accent is made on the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. I would particularly mention the projects realized by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation in this direction, including the publication of booklets "Karabakh realities" in several languages, which includes historical facts about Karabakh, commencement of the conflict, damage inflicted to our country by Armenians, Khojaly tragedy, terrorist attacks by Armenians in different countries; "War and cultural-historical monuments" book, which deals with sacred places and cultural and historical monuments in the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, books "War Against Azerbaijan: Targeting Cultural Heritage" and "War against Azerbaijan: cultural heritage in view", dealing with the vandalism policy pursued by Armenia expediently towards Azerbaijani culture, moral and material heritage, and its bitter outcomes. The books were presented in several European countries.

Beginning from 2007 the Foundation has held actions, roundtables, workshops, dedicated to anniversary of Khojaly tragedy, in many world countries. During the events we demonstrate "Khojaly genocide", shot by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, as well as photos and articles about Khojaly genocide published in influential international publications at different times, expositions of pictures selected as a result of contests on "Khojaly on children's eyes" held by the Foundation at secondary schools and orphanages. Representatives of different organizations, diplomatic missions, local residents, as well as media representatives are invited to take part in these events.

Our duty is to contribute to informing the international community of Azerbaijani realities. We will take our utmost to inform the world about the essence of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

/Trend News/

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