Established in 1995, we create media through an international production process from our base in Ottawa, Canada

ISSUES IMPACTED BY FIRDAUS KHARAS

Firdaus Kharas has created for impact 110 animated and live action series, several documentaries, and hundreds of hours of live action television series, each on different topics, including:

Capacity building: animation production, creativity, mass communications, media distribution, overcoming barriers to communications

Culture: African folktales, preservation of culture, especially in Africa, the Middle East and Asia

Education: alternatives for street children, animation, children at risk, cyber-security, Early childhood and middle children’s education, literacy promotion, training in mass communications, values for children, video creation

Environment:
climate change, conservation, environmental protection, interaction with nature, kindness to animals, solar power, sustainable energy for all, water management

Governance: child labour, children’s rights, community engagement, emergency preparedness, engaging with diasporas, engaging women in the peace process, following laws, human rights, rights of children with diabetes, Universal values, voting processes

Health: asbestos eradication, caregivers to people with dementia, caregiving in long-term care homes, clean energy, COVID-19 understanding and prevention, COVID-19 vaccines, dangers of asbestos, dementia research, Ebola containment and prevention, Guinea Worm prevention, HIV/AIDS prevention, hypertension during pregnancy, immunizations and vaccinations promotion, malaria prevention, migraine disease, obesity in children, partnering on vaccinations, perimenopause in the workplace, polio eradication, solar energy, stigma against Ebola survivors, stigma felt by COVID-19 healthcare workers, the plague prevention, Type 1 diabetes, Vitamin A deficiency, Zika prevention

Housing: housing expectations, housing options, rental housing for newcomers, right to housing, safety at home

Human Rights: becoming anti-racist, child camel jockeys, child camel jockeys, child refugee claimants, children’s rights, consequences and support for rape victims, education, gender-based rights, interacting with the police, long-lasting affects of rape, medical assistance, physical violence amongst teenagers, racial discrimination, racism, rights of children with Type 1 diabetes, right to healthcare, sexual harassment, sexual harassment within churches, sexual violence, understanding racism, Universal rights, what are human rights

Maternal and infant health: digital birth certificates, health from pregnancy through the first 100 days of life, infant mortality and health, pregnancy, safe births, universal birth registration

Mental Health: managing and coping with stress, mental health for newcomers, stress alleviation methods, stress felt by refugees, wellness and youth

Migration: asylum determination, causes of refugees, child refugees, cultural orientation for refugees, displaced persons, legal rights of refugees, refugee camps, refugee systems, Refugees, sponsors of refugees, understanding and accepting refugees

Universal Values: Anti-racism, anti-bullying, attitudes towards victims of rape, cultural tolerance, gender equality, honesty

Violence: attitudes towards rape victims, exploitation of children, gender-related violence, how to interact with the police, perceived right to commit violence within families, rape within families and conflict situations, using culture as a justification for violence, various forms of sexual abuse, violence against children, violence reduction amongst teenagers

Selected Animated Productions

• Co-producer and Director of two videos designed to encourage universal birth registration
• Creator and Director of several series on emotional health and wellness
• Creator and Director of a video directed at refugees on the Coronavirus COVID-19
• Creator and Director of a video explaining human rights, Think Human Rights Don’t Affect You?
• Creator and Director of a video on COVID-19 vaccines, including community-based organizations
• Creator and Director of a video on global Polio vaccination
• Creator and Director of a video on how to interact with the police in the United States
• Creator and Director of a video on liver disease prevention, Life After Liver Failure
• Creator and Director of a video on perimenopause at work, Perimenopause: Be Cool and Aware
• Creator and Director of a video on prevention of the plague
• Creator and Director of a video on sexual harassment within churches worldwide, Whispering With Stones
• Creator and Director of a video on the effects of rape on women in Africa, A Plea to My Father
• Creator and Director of a video on the stigma felt by COVID-19 healthcare workers
• Creator and Director of a video promoting cyber-security
• Creator and Director of a video supporting universal vaccinations of children
• Creator and Director of a video to reduce maternal mortality caused by hypertension in Africa and in Latin America
• Creator and Director of audio podcasts on COVID-19 vaccines
• Creator and Director of Buzz and Bite, a series to prevent malaria infection (launched at the United Nations in New York)
• Creator and Director of four videos entitled Becoming Anti-racist based on research by the University of Ottawa
• Creator and Director of Nan and Lili, the 300-episode first animated educational pre-school series in Arabic
• Creator and Director of Nature for All, a video designed to get people to interact with nature
• Creator and Director of several videos and audio podcasts on the United States refugee system, rights of refugees and cultural orientation for refugees
• Creator and Director of three animated shorts to build awareness of migraine disease
• Creator and Director of three animated videos to build community engagement for refugees in the US
• Creator and Director of three videos on Ebola containment, prevention, and stigma (for West Africa), A Poem for the Living, Ebola! and Ebola: A Plea
• Creator and Director of two videos on Ebola containment and prevention (for Central Africa)
• Creator and Director of two videos on the dangers of asbestos and eradication of asbestos
• Creator and Director of two videos on violence and discrimination faced by teen-aged refugees in Ecuador
• Creator and Director of videos on mental health, coping with stress and support services
• Creator and Director of videos on nuclear disarmament, peace and development
• Creator and Director of videos promoting vaccination, Don’t Wait: Vaccinate
• Creator of a series of videos on the rights of children with Type 1 diabetes
• Creator of a series on universal values for young children
• Creator of a video on violence against children and in Malawi
• Creator of No Excuses, a series to prevent domestic violence throughout the world (launched at the United Nations in New York)
• Creator of The Solar Campaign series designed to get people without electricity to switch from harmful sources of light like burning kerosene to clean solar lights
• Director and co-creator of The Three Amigos, a series to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS (launched at the United Nations in New York)
• Director and Executive Producer of the Magic Cellar series, the first animated series based on African culture
• Director of a series on preventing obesity in children
• Director of eight videos on information for refugees and newcomers
• Director of Five Steps for emergency and disaster preparedness
• Director of five videos on housing options and safety for newcomers
• Director of Spread the Jam, on children’s rights, for the UN Special Session
• Executive Producer and Writer of Honk, Toot and Swo-Swoosh, the early learning pre-school children’s series
• Executive Producer of Cartoons for Children’s Rights based on the Convention of Children’s Rights
• Producer of the iconic television series George of the Jungle (distributed by DreamWorks)

Selected Live Action Productions

• Co-producer of a series of individual documentaries on Canadian children at risk
• Creator and Director of a bilingual video on person-centred care in long-term care homes
• Creator and Director of Mental Health Context for Afghan Newcomers, an educational documentary for service providers
• Creator and Executive Producer of the 300-episode City of the Rich, Asia’s first English language daily soap opera
• Director and Interviewer of Women Standing Up for Rights, Peace and Plurality, a compilation of interviews with 22 women activists from conflict zones in the Middle East and Asia
• Director and Producer of Dementia: You Can Make A Difference, two videos on dementia
• Director and Producer of Pedro: A Child Without a Country commissioned by OMNI channel on a child refugee claimant from Africa in Canada
• Director and Producer of two documentary shorts on caregivers to people with dementia, No Thanks, We’re Fine (English) and Non Merci, Ça Va (French)
• Executive Producer and Field Producer of Desert Riders, a feature-length documentary on child camel jockeys in the Middle East broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC),
• Executive Producer of Canada’s Two Cents Worth, a documentary on the global Vitamin A program
• Executive Producer of Let’s See, Let’s Learn, an educational series for children
• Executive Producer of Odyssey: Behind the Myth a six-episode international documentary series based on Homer’s classic book
• Executive Producer of Working Animals, the 26-episode series aired on Discovery and Animal Planet channels

Dedicated to capacity building

For over 30 years Firdaus Kharas has been committed to improving the skills of media professionals around the world sharing his expertise, pro bono, via workshops, seminars and multi-month courses, particularly in Asia and Africa. Kharas’ commitment to sharing his vision and methodology also includes meeting with students, lecturing on mass communication, and speaking at festivals of film and television.

Kharas’ humanitarian work in countries other than his own includes organizing and leading a multi-faceted program in South Africa to train South Africans in producing, writing and animating.  This capacity-building training aims to create a vibrant long-form animation industry capable of world-class story-telling.

Media

Firdaus Kharas is profiled in several publications including in many articles and Canadian Who’s Who.

He has been profiled over 500 times by the world’s press, from The New Yorker, Reader’s Digest, MacLean’s and The Atlantic magazines to Rush Limbaugh’s radio show and dozens of other media around the world in several languages. His methods, particularly his methodology of linguistic adaptation and ability to create mass communication across cultural boundaries have regularly been the subject of academic study by students. Kharas and his work are noted in many books and publications and his work is in the permanent collection of several museums including the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest.