Avideh Shashaani
Avideh Shashaani, Ph.D. is the founder and president of
the Fund for the Future of our Children (FFC), a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC dedicated to developing innovative educational and multicultural programs that encourage and empower children and youth to be agents of peace in local and global
environments. She promotes intercultural and interfaith understanding through
lectures, workshops, and publications.
She is the author of three books:
Promised Paradise (poetic prose), Remember Me (poetry), and Tell Me Where to
Be Born
(poetry):
Her poems have been featured in a one-hour program in the Library
of Congress radio series “The Poet and the Poem”.
She has translated
ten Persian mystical texts into English. She served as Vice President of
the Literary Friends of the DC Public Library for five years. She served
as the first Co-Director of the United Nations International Institute
for Rehabilitation in Developing Countries. She is the past Board Chair
of Refugee Women in Development and the Founding Chair of MOSAICA: The
Center for Nonprofit Development and Pluralism. She currently serves on
the board of The Faith & Politics Institute and the Thomas Merton Institute
for Contemplative Living. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Experimental
Psychology and a Ph.D. in Sufi Studies.
Books:
• Promised Paradise
(poetic prose)
• Remember Me (poetry)
• Tell Me Where to Be Born
•
Something Deeper Happened: Young Voices and the 2008 U.S. Election
on YouTube
Grace Cavalieri says:
Avideh Shashaani's new book of poems presents a challenge to the highest spirit in us. It asks that our full attention be turned to the children of the world, with the hope and knowledge that innocence is not a point of departure., but a path of return. Tell Me Where to Be Born is where children live in a consecrated place asking for their lives to be given back to them. Each poem presents a story, a song, a dream, a plea, a voice of prayer - as the traffic of the world moves past a poet's crystal window.
Poet/Producer of The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress) for public radio