An Interview With A Philanthropist: Naheed Gilani

June 14, 2013

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Last Sunday I had the amazing opportunity to meet the compassionate, caring and intelligent Naheed Gilani at The World Partnership Walk’s: Global Village.

Who is Naheed Gilani?
Naheed Gilani is a one in a million type of human being that offers his time and knowledge in developing countries to better their economies and quality of life. In fact he has actually attended an AKDN (Aga Khan Development Network) project in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Mozambique. AKDN is the organization that is in charge of The World Partnership Walk and many other global poverty initiatives.

I had was very fortunate to interview Naheed regarding his experiences working in Africa and was truly inspired by his experiences he shared with me.

As I mentioned before his AKDN project was located in Africa in 2010, I believe. He was there to better the economy and worked with micro-finance in both Tanzania and Mozambique.

One of the very first questions I asked was, “Overall was there anything in particular that stood out to you?”
He answered by talking about something that grabbed his attention in Mozambique. He talked about how although Mozambique is known for having tropical land and an abundant amount of fruit they didn’t produce much of it, and fruit was sold for extremely high prices. From what I understood, oranges were extremely expensive compared to bananas and he explained to me the irony in that. He talked about how the country should be selling the fruits to help their economy, after all they live in a tropical desert!
He gave me a specific example, he saw a coconut tree with multiple coconuts in them yet they were just still on the tree, no one bothered bringing them down to make money. It was just left upon the tree, which startled him because he saw a huge source of income being made from selling those fruits which could in the end help better Mozambique’s society.

I also asked him if there were any struggles for him while he lived in both Tanzania and Mozambique. He replied by saying the language and communicating was a little issue that may have occurred from time to time. He talked about how most of Mozambique spoke Portuguese and very little English but that barrier was quickly broken because I’m sure as intelligent as Naheed is he must have found another communication tool or had learnt the language quite swiftly. He stated that Dar Es Salaam was easier in that aspect because more people spoke English there. (Dar Es Salaam is absolutely beautiful, one of my favorite places that I have traveled too!)

Naheed’s last statement definitely inspired me the most! He said, “This is something I’m meant to be doing.” Yes, I agree with you Naheed this is truly something you are meant to do, you are destined to be where you are today and the work you do truly inspires us youth! Thank you for taking your time to talk with me, meant a lot!

Here are a couple of pictures from the Global Village, at The World Partnership Walk, that explain more about the AKDN’s work and projects.