Tonight I had the rare privilege of meeting one of the world's great humanitarians who deserves to be known beyond Iran and the Iranian diaspora. Mrs. Bahadorzadeh, director for 60 years so far of the Kahrizak Foundation kept us spellbound for 2 1/2 hours as Professor Abbas Milani of the Hamid and Christine Moghandam Iranian Studies Program at Standford translated for the non Farsi speakers in the audience at Cubberley Auditorium tonnight Dec.2, 2008. The Parsa Foundation funded her visit.
Essentially this amazing lady has made a life's work out of helping the handicapped and the destitute and homeless elderly in Iran regardless of their ethnic or religious affiliations, age or gender.
When she first began her work she had a two room house with no amenities to work with and now is the director of what is essentially an entire town sized community with 1,800 patients and 900 volunteers, some of whom have come to bath and feed the elderly for over 35 years now.
Her organization is very different from most institutions for elder care. When she began often the elderly would die the next day after she accepted them. She went around the world studying elder care facilities and came to the conclusion that most old people suffered from melancholy, loneliness and a feeling of uselessness.
Their room was their jail cell while they waited for their grave. She decided that seperating people by age was not natural or healthy and she set up a daycare and eventually a school K through 12 and encouraged the volunteers and employees to bring their children. She began taking in handicapped young people. She set up adult education classes and work shops where elderly could learn employable skills ranging from weaving sweaters to ceramics. Once they started working and earning income instead of being useless they could send money to help relatives who had once shunned them as a burden. She offered every kind of sport and therapy, especially music and singing lessons. Now rather than dying the next day the typical elderly patient lives an additional 12 years there on the average. She said that 45 handicapped patients have married there and not a single divorce so far.
They have created a museum recognized by the State with keepsakes from life long volunteers who have passed away and also a zoo filled with donated animals. There is a hospital within the complex. One of her patients made a wheel chair tour around the world, starting and ending in Vancouver. It took a couple of years but upon his return the Canadian government gave him and his entire family citizenship and a house to live in.
She said that they never have more than a months' salaries in their account but are never short of money either because everyday God gives someone the opportunity to discover how to give. She said that so many people give them foodstuffs and lamb meat that they cannot use it all and send it to their counterparts all over Iran to feed their patients.
She ended by stating that there is no other elderly care facility on the planet like the Kahrizak model with its mix of elderly and handicapped and children and employment and education and that every year they have big Norooz and Christmas celebrations there and she spends her holidays with them. Finally she said that it was not about what 'I' had done but about what “we” had done and that Iran can offer the world solutions for the common problems of humanity.
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Mrs. Bahadorzadeh, one of the world's great humanitarians, director of Kahrizak foundation "
Essentially this amazing lady has made a life's work out of helping the handicapped and the destitute and homeless elderly in Iran regardless of their ethnic or religious affiliations, age or gender.
