IAWF Joins Tirgan Festival in Toronto

June 2019 Newsletter Issue II

Tirgan Festival Partners with IAWF for Documentary Screening

Tirgan, in partnership with the Iranian American Women Foundation (IAWF), presents photographer and award-winning filmmaker Fery Malek-Madani's project exploring the lives of young women in post-revolution Iran. Malek-Madani's groundbreaking documentary film The Girls will be screened and followed by a Q&A with the Founder and President of IAWF, Mariam Khosravani.

Born in Tehran in 1955, Malek-Madani's parents sent her to school in Brussels as a pre-teen. She found that her classmates in Brussels shared her same hopes and dreams. Fifty years later, after witnessing the Iranian Revolution from afar, Malek-Madani wondered if the girls of post-revolution Iran had those same kinds of dreams for the future. Malek-Madani made it her mission to find out and was struck by the girls' well-thought-out responses to questions about their dreams, and their teachers' nurturing support.

The event will conclude with a special Q&A led by Mariam Khosravani. The screening will take place on July 29th at the Harbourfront Centre Theatre in Toronto, Canada. Details about the event can be found here .

Chapter Member Spotlights

Azita Ghazanfarian New York	Azita resides in New Jersey where she is a Doctor of Pharmacy and is the Founder of AZMAART Consulting LLC, a marketing & business development consulting company. She has held multiple positions as Executive Manager in numerous medical companies throughout her career. Currently, she is a Marketing and Business Development Consultant specializing in Pharmaceutical and Medical Companies who helps businesses of any size to grow and reach their full potential. She is also an artist and her favorite style is acrylic and oil color. You can read more here .
Sepideh Kazemi Southern California	Dr. Sepideh Kazemi is an Interventional Cardiologist practicing at Orange County, California. She has earned her medical degree from Iran University of Medical Sciences in 1994. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine, and fellowship in Cardiovascular disease both at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Then she went to fellowship in Interventional Cardiology at St Luke's Hospital University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, where she served as the chief fellow and graduated in 2006. She is board certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular disease, Interventional Cardiology and Nuclear Cardiology. Currently she has a private practice with offices at Irvine and Aliso Viejo. You can read more here .
Persis Karim Northern California	Persis Karim is editor/co-editor of three anthologies of Iranian American literature including A World Between: Poems, Short Stories and Essays by Iranian Americans (1999), Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora (2006) and Tremors: New Fiction by Iranian American Writers (2013). She teaches literature and creative writing at San Jose State University and is also the founding director of Persian Studies and Coordinator of Middle East Studies. She has written numerous articles on Iranian diaspora culture and literature for journals such as Iranian Studies, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States. You can read more here .

Dr. Shida Saam Opens New Office

We would like to congratulate Dr. Shida Saam on opening of her new office in Irvine. Dr. Saam is Board certified in Family Practice and Geriatrics in private practice with offices in Irvine and Tustin. She is currently Chief of Family Medicine and Vice Chair of Medicine at Western Medical Center and is a guest speak er on various health topics at professional and community events. Dr. Saam focuses on women's health issues, pediatrics and senior health care. She provides preventative medicine for the entire family by developing a trusting relationship in which the patient is encouraged to discuss and participate in the treatment and decision making process. Her special interests include alternative medicine, menopause and natural hormone therapy, prostate and related disease, as well as Botox and Cosmetic Care. You can read more here. Her new office is located at 16300 Sand Canyon #602, Irvine, CA 92618 . We wish you the best in this endeavor!

Circle of 1000s Featured Member

Shadi Razifard , chair of IAWF's NorCal Mentorship program, is a CPCC (Certified Professional Co-Active Coach) and graduated from college with a degree in Microbiology and Medical Genetics. For the last twenty years, she has held various sales and business development positions in named Biotechnology companies. She was introduced to the world of self-discovery and personal growth in 1992. She became fascinated by human behavior, and the driving force behind human actions and behaviors. Over the years, she took part in many seminars, courses and workshops, and continuously challenged herself to the next level of growth. The more she knew, the more she realized how much there was to be uncovered. In 2013, she decided to take her journey to yet another level and enrolled to become a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach through the Coaches Training Institute (CTI). In 2016, she successfully completed the program. All the work she had done up to now was for her own benefit, but coaching gave her the training to walk the path of giving back and contributing to others in a tangible way. She has touched many lives throughout her journey and has coached Silicon Valley executives, managers, entrepreneurs, and men and women in life, career, and relationship transitions.

Circle of Men

Kamran Elahian is an Innovation Catalyst who advises various governments on the needed transition from fossil based economies to sustainable innovation economies. In the past, as a global high-tech entrepreneur, he co-founded ten companies, had 6 exits, 3 of which were Unicorn IPOs with a total market cap of over $8B. For 15 yrs., he was Chairman of Global Catalyst Partners, a global VC firm ($350M under management) with investments in the U.S., Japan, China, India, Israel and Singapore. Underlying his vision for global philanthropy is the conviction that modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can be instrumental in dissolving barriers between nations and bridging the social and political differences among people. This vision was reflected in Schools-Online, a nonprofit he co-founded in 1996 to connect the world, one school at a time (6400 schools in 36 countries were provided with computers and access to the Internet) and merged with Relief International in 2003; Global Catalyst Foundation, co-founded in 2000 to improve lives through effective education and empowerment of the youth (with special emphasis on young women) uses the leverage of ICT, and UN-GAID, a United Nations global forum that promotes ICT in developing countries where he served as Co-Chairman (2009-2011).