Ongoing
Ansari-Cook Foundation Bursary for Indigenous Students at UBC
One of the goals of the Anari-Cook Foundation is to enhance the education of Indigenous peoples in Canada by providing financial assistance to students enrolled in post-secondary education. To further this goal, the Ansari-Cook Foundations has provided bursaries totalling $5,000 for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit students of Canada enrolled in the Bachelor of Applied Science program or the Bachelor of Science program at the University of British Columbia. Preference is given to students studying in Mechanical Engineering. These bursaries are adjudicated by the university Enrolment Services.
Qadirun Fatima Scholarship
The Ansari-Cook Foundation, in cooperation with Human Development Foundation Canada, a registered Canadian charitable organization, has established the Qadirun Fatima Scholarship for young women from poor families in Pakistan. This scholarship covers tuition, lodging, meals and uniforms for two years and enables them to pursue a two-year F.Sc science program at approved colleges. It offers up to 10 scholarships each year to young students who are selected based on their merit and financial situation. This scholarship program started in 2021 and will last until 2026.
Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids (BB4CK)
BB4CK is dedicated to ensuring every child in Calgary has access to the food they need to thrive. Together with their community BB4CK connects kids to nutritious meals through school lunches, summer camps, and by supporting families with grocery cards. They are committed to providing low-barrier, dignified access to food, ensuring every child feels cared for and supported by their community. The Ansari-Cook Foundation is providing financial support since 2021. Our contribution is specifically for the BB4CK School Lunch Program. This ensures the BB4CK team and volunteers can consistently provide balanced and nutritious food for lunches that are delivered to kids every school day. Our contribution has provided over a thousand lunches every year.
2025 Projects
Bridging Poverty and Educational Gaps in Rural Communities of Pakistan
In Pakistan, the rising inflation and pervasive poverty have significantly strained rural communities, making it increasingly difficult for vulnerable families to meet their basic needs. Education, a critical pathway to breaking the cycle of poverty, has become an unaffordable for many, with families unable to bear the rising costs of school fees and associated expenses. Financial instability, compounded by limited access to schools, forces many parents to prioritize survival over their children’s education. Rural areas in Pakistan possess significant untapped potential for livestock rearing. With abundant grazing spaces along roadsides and canals, coupled with supportive village infrastructure and cultural acceptance of goat and sheep farming. Livestock farming presents a viable opportunity for income generation. This project will provide livestock sets (3 female goats and 1 male goat) to 118 vulnerable families. It will enable them to generate sustainable income through breeding cycles. The Ansari-Cook Foundation is working with Human Development Foundation of North America, and has provided funding to sponsor five families. Each family will receive three female goats and one mail goat. In addition, each family will also receive reasonable funds to educate at least one child in the family for 18 months.
Scholarships to Palestinian students
Many children in Palestine, particularly in Gaza and West Bank, have been orphaned due to on-going conflict. They do not have the resources to continue their education. The Resilient Education Foundation (REF) is a Canadian charitable initiative managed by the Canadian Palestinian Professional Foundation. REF’s mission is to provide scholarships to Palestinian students, particularly orphan students and those from financially disadvantaged families in Gaza and the West Bank. The scholarships support university level studies in high impact fields such as Medicine, Engineering, and Information Technology. These scholarships help in transforming lives through education, empowering young people to stay in their homeland, serve their communities and break the cycle of poverty. The Ansari-Cook Foundation has provided financial support to REF that will meet all expenses for two students that would enable them to pursue a program in medicine for one year. REF works in partnership with United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA). UNRWA manages the scholarship application process to ensure full transparency and accountability in student selection and fund distribution. The scholarship process which covers full tuition. The UNRWA manages the application process and disburses funds directly to accredited universities. The primary beneficiaries are orphan students in Gaza and the West Bank with academic excellence and financial need.
2024 Projects
Operation Eyesight
To further the Ansari-Cook foundation’s goals, the foundation has funded an initiative that bolsters Operation Eyesight’s existing initiatives services, to help reduce the impact of the humanitarian crisis following the 2004 drought in Zambia. This crisis placed additional stress on Zambia’s health care resources, including those allocated to vision. The drought has also reduced vulnerable people’s access to clean water, which heightened the transmission of eye infections and other diseases, such as blinding trachoma. To ensure hospitals and vision centres have access to pharmaceuticals for treating vision disorders and diseases. Our foundation had provided funding to enable Operation Eyesight in its’ effort to minimize negative impact to people in Zambia who are less fortunate and may not have resources by working with partner hospitals and vision centres in Zambia and obtain essential pharmaceutical products and other consumable items to fight infection, for those in need and can not afford. This will have an immediate and long-term effect, enabling children to attend school and individuals to work and support themselves and their families.
Sled Island
Sled Island is a non-profit Calgary organization that holds an annual music festival and other related events. Our Foundation’s stated goal is to enhance the quality of life in communities and advance learning. The Ansari -Cook Foundation has provided funding to help hold the November 2024 Sled Island Rock Lotto, a community-building musical event at a Calgary musical venue, to help newcomers, immigrants, and other’s facing barriers obtain valuable experience, and to foster personal and meaningful relationships with other musicians. Our financial contributions are expected to help foster a more diverse musical community in Calgary by helping newcomer musicians and individuals facing barriers in accessing opportunities that will enable them to pursue their love of music.
Winter Warming Operation
This program is run by The Mustard Seed, a charitable organization based in Calgary. It provides warm lunches to those experiencing homelessness and the most vulnerable in our community. The program feeds 100 or more people 6 days a week from December to the end of March. This is an essential program as it allows the most vulnerable among us to come inside the downtown community impact centre to warm up and get the vital nutritious meal during the coldest months of the year. The Ansari-Cook Foundation provided funding to enable this program and thus be able to serve hot meals during extreme cold Calgary weather conditions. This project supports the Ansari-Cook Foundation’s primary goals to relieve poverty by providing food and other basic necessities.
Gaza Relief
Over the past two years most of Gaza has been totally destroyed and its’ population displaced. Several thousand Palestinians have been killed and survivors face a humanitarian crisis. The Ansari-Cook Foundation has provided financial support, through the International Development and Relief Foundation, towards helping the Palestinians affected by this crisis. Our financial contributions are aimed at providing basic humanitarian needs to the affected Gazans.
2023 Projects
Nisa Homes
Nisa Homes provides support services and transitional housing for women and children who have experienced domestic violence, homeless and poverty. It provides a culturally sensitive space for Muslim women in Canada, many of whom have been isolated and marginalized. The Ansari-Cook foundation sponsored a Nisa Homes kitchen through their Adopt-A-Room package, which covered the costs of stocking a pantry for the year, purchasing produce, meats, and groceries for the home’s in-home clients. It also went towards providing kitchen necessities, and covered costs for food-related programming for clients, in order to build the skills and knowledge needed to purchase and prepare meals. The Ansari-Cook Foundation chose the kitchen for the Adopt-a-Room package because it addresses a basic need of under privileged women and children.
The Mustard Seed
The Mustard Seed currently operates three Neighbourhood Centres in high-needs communities around Calgary. These centres offer wrap-around services and social-inclusion programming for low-income individuals, families, youth and children. Due to the high demand for employment support, The Mustard Seed operates a much-needed Employment Program. The Ansari-Cook Foundation donation supported the Mustard Seed’s workplace Employment Training program, which aims to break the cycle of poverty through education and support by providing courses in health care, office administration, and security. The Foundation’s support will prove approximately ten people with vital workplace training, subsidized childcare and workwear/ gear.
Flood Relief
During 2022 Pakistan experienced severe flooding that has affect a large number of its’ citizens. About 33 million people were left in need of emergency shelter. The Human Development Foundation of North America (HDF) and The Ansari-Cook Foundation (ACF) are joining forces to alleviate the suffering of families who have lost their homes and possessions.
The Ansari-Cook Foundation has sponsored three one room houses to be built and donated to needy families during 2023. These houses will be built in Goth Meer Deenar Khan Brohi, Jacobabad, Pakistan, an area that was severely impacted by the floods.
Aid to Residents of Gaza
The residents of Gaza have been in dire need for humanitarian aid, due to the fact that much of the infrastructure, residential buildings, and hospitals have been destroyed by bombing. In 2003, the Ansari-Cook Foundation has worked with Human Concerns International, a Canadian registered charity with presence in Palestine, by providing financial assistance to help displaced, injured and hungry residents.
2022 Projects
Medical Aid for Palestine
This is an international charity that also operates in Canada. Because of the current political situation in Palestine a number of children’s eyesight has been severely damaged and require complex medical treatment including surgery. Our contribution is aimed at helping five to eight children undergo treatments to regain their eyesight.
2021 Projects
Calgary Drop-In Centre: Computers to Low Income Calgarians
The Ansari-Cook Foundation has provided funding to the Calgary Drop-In Centre (DI) for its Computers to Low Income Calgarians (CLIC) program. The funding support activities undertaken by DI technical staff in refurbishing donated computers and other electronic equipment which are provided to low and no-income Calgarians to ensure they have access to essential technology. The project also facilitates the training of students from local technical schools who, as part of their practicum program, gain experience by servicing donated equipment and making them useful for needy Calgarians.
Operation Eyesight International: Eye Screening for Ghanaian Youth
The Ansari-Cook Foundation has provided funding to Operation Eyesight International, a charitable organization based in Calgary, to undertake a one-year eye screening and visual impairment remediation program at the Ofaako MA Junior High School, located in Awutu Senya East, in the Central Region of Ghana. These young school-aged children are often the most vulnerable people who are disproportionately affected by visual impairment. Restoration of vision, particularly in school-aged children, allows them to succeed both inside and outside the classroom, and sets them up for success in later life. This funding will train one teacher in identifying the signs of visual impairment, will screen 300 students, provide 10 pairs of prescription eyeglasses, enable 100 students to receive medical treatment for minor conditions such as conjunctivitis, and refer one student to a hospital for surgical treatment for visual impairment.
2020 Projects
Operation Eyesight: Zambia Borehole Rehabilitation
The Ansari-Cook Foundation is a supporting funder in this project, providing communities with fresh water and proper hygiene, which helps to prevent the spread of infectious diseases like trachoma, a bacterial disease that, when left untreated, leads to irreversible blindness. Operation Eyesight drills boreholes in centralized locations within rural villages, which ensures easy access for all community members. Without boreholes, women and girls are often tasked to trek for hours to retrieve water from faraway sources, prohibiting them from attending work or school. This burden disproportionately prevents women and girls from gaining the knowledge and skills that they need to become successful members of their communities.
Calgary Drop-In Centre Hunger Relief Program
We are pleased to be a partner in the DI’s work to support food security and transitioning back to independent living for low and no income vulnerable citizens experiencing difficulties.
Support for those affected by the 2020 Beirut Explosion
The Ansari-Cook Foundation has helped this cause via a contribution through Islamic Relief Canada, a registered charity approved by the Government of Canada.
Ansari-Cook Foundation 