Firdaus Kharas

Firdaus Kharas has been referred to in the media as a “world renowned” director and producer of animation, film and television media. His current work focuses on creating various types of media to effect societal and individual behavioural change through mass communications spanning across many cultures and countries to better the human condition. 
Mr. Kharas creates media specifically to educate and entertain across cultural barriers. His media positively influences audiences’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviour, especially amongst children and young adults. 
An article on Mr. Kharas said "individuals can make a difference.... He is living testament to it". Canada’s national newspaper, [The Globe and Mail], captured Mr. Kharas' philosophy well in a headline: “I’m just trying to make a small contribution”.
His main avenues are short- and long-form television programs and animation. Mr. Kharas’ media creations have been seen by over one billion people in over 150 countries. Mr. Kharas also heavily engages in training. 
Mr. Kharas has received several awards personally, including the [United Nations] Peace Medal from the UN Secretary-General, the medal of the [World Federation of UN Associations], the Distinguished Alumnus Award from his alma matar, and the 2005 [ReelWorld Trailblazer award].
His work has garnered 60 international awards in just the last 3 years. Over 300 articles have been written in the international media about his work and graduate students in several universities have studied his efforts to cross cultural boundaries.
Mr. Kharas’ work encompasses the world. He has been instrumental in strengthening the media industries in Holland, India, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa. He travels frequently and extensively around the world and has been to over 100 countries in every major region, from the High Artic to crossing the Sahara Desert. He has been to animation studios in the Far East, war zones in Central America, refugee camps in South-East Asia, and to many AIDS-related NGO's, hospitals and youth centres in urban and rural Africa. He has participated in Canadian trade missions to several countries led by the Prime Minister and the Minister of International Trade and has discussed broadcasting and content policies with Ministers and senior government officials in many countries.
Current examples of his work are the acclaimed animated series of Public Service Announcements to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS, [The Three Amigos] HIV/AIDS Prevention Programme; the first animated series based on African culture, [Magic Cellar]; and the early learning pre-school children’s series [Honk, Toot and Swo-swoosh].
[The Three Amigos] is a series of purposely varied animated spots that use humour to counter the spread of HIV/AIDS. The series, directed and produced by Mr. Kharas, was adapted under his supervision into 41 languages thereby enabling a potential reach of 80% of the world’s population in their own language. 
The Three Amigos has been used intensively in a wide variety of countries, ranging from liberal democracies to conservative theocracies, from countries in southern Africa where AIDS is rampant, to countries on the threshold of a possible AIDS crisis in Asia and Eastern Europe. Broadcasters have donated millions of dollars worth of free air time to air the series, in some cases up to 20 times a day. Thousands of health clinics, hospitals, non-governmental organizations and universities across the world currently use the series. 
The series has received 30 international awards and hundreds of articles in many languages have been written on its creation and impact. Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu is the principal supporter who has called the series “a powerful communicating tool”. Hundreds of testimonials from around the world have been received from every walk of life, from powerful government officials to AIDS educators to ordinary people who's behaviour has been influenced by the series. 
Tapes and DVD’s are sent out free of charge upon request by Mr. Kharas.
[Magic Cellar] is the first animated series ever created on African culture, faithfully and beautifully replicating local folktales to reflect the rich story-telling tradition of Africa. For the first time, African children see themselves reflected in animation, listen to characters that sound like them and watch stories that they are familiar with. [Magic Cellar] is unique in many ways as it is: 
•	The first 3D animated series from Africa. 
•	The first animated series based on African culture. 
•	The first vehicle to showcase African culture to children around the world. 
•	A television series that preserves African folktales, some of which are being lost as the tradition of oral story-telling diminishes. 
•	A television series featuring a multi-cultural cast of characters, with the principal character being a black girl.
Directed and produced by Mr. Kharas, the series has received 27 international awards to date and has been showcased in several Festivals. 
[Honk, Toot and Swo-swoosh] is a pre-school educational series produced and co-written by Mr. Kharas. Designed to be the first series ever seen on television by a child, the animated series featuring a car, a boat and a helicopter encourages appropriate learning and instills desirable behaviour in young children. 
Originally created without any financial support from a broadcaster, the series has been sold in over 100 countries with an estimated audience of 200 million children.
Most of his projects have a strong component of training. Over the course of the last 11 years, Mr. Kharas has built capacities by training thousands of media professionals in Asia and Africa in particular, directly and indirectly through his projects. Mr. Kharas has personally conducted training in workshops and seminars up to ten weeks long and he has ensured that all of his projects train new people in the media industry free of charge.
Mr. Kharas is currently organizing and leading a multi-faceted 18-month programme to train 75 South Africans in producing, writing and animating. This capacity-building training should assist Africa in creating a vibrant long-form animation industry capable of world-class story-telling. The training is being delivered by world-leading practitioners with decades of experience. Mr. Kharas has organized for a Canadian institution of higher education, [Algonquin College], to issue diplomas to the African students. Mr. Kharas sits on Algonquin College’s Animation Advisory Committee.
Mr. Kharas is very interested in developing young people, which has been a constant theme through-out his career. He frequently meets with students and has lectured on mass communications within the past 24 months alone to students at UCLA, Concordia, Ottawa, Thiel, Durban, Stellenbosch, Witwatersrand and Mandela universities and to several schools ranging from Montreal to townships in Africa. Mr. Kharas has also spoken to several Children’s Festivals of film and television.
Mr. Kharas is a member of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (that awards the International Emmy’s), the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television (that awards the Genie’s and the Gemini’s) and the International Centre of Film for Children and Young People (CIFEJ). Mr. Kharas often sits on international juries for Festivals and this year sat on the jury for the International Emmy for the Best Documentary.
Prior to his present work in media content, Mr. Kharas was a senior executive in the Government of Canada. From 1989 to 1994, Mr. Kharas was an Assistant Deputy Chairman of the [Immigration and Refugee Board], the largest administrative tribunal in Canada. Mr. Kharas was one of the founding senior executives of the Board and was appointed by the Cabinet. 
As head of the Refugee Backlog Sub-Division, he had national responsibilities for a program concerning 112,000 refugee claimants from 116 countries, which has been called the single largest movement of people in Canadian history. He oversaw 50 Board members making decisions on individual claims in offices from Newfoundland to British Columbia. Having cleared the backlog of refugee claimants, Mr. Kharas was appointed the Assistant Deputy Chairman in charge of the Ottawa/Atlantic division of the Board. During his time on the IRB, Mr. Kharas also organized three national training conferences for Board members.
Prior to that appointment he was the non-partisan Policy Advisor to the Minister of Employment and Immigration of Canada, the Honourable Barbara McDougall. Mr. Kharas advised the Minister on immigration and refugee policies, practices and law and took critical decisions on individual cases seeking Ministerial intervention. He undertook a sensitive trip on behalf of the Minister to several Central American countries and assisted the Minister in shepherding two bills through Parliament that created a new refugee determination system.
For five years previously, he was the head of the staff as Executive Director of the [United Nations Association in Canada] (UNAC), having been appointed to the position at the age of 27. 
For four years he was concurrently a member of the governing body of the [World Federation of United Nations Associations] (WFUNA) based in Geneva. In that capacity he attended several meetings in different countries of the world, including in Geneva, Berlin, Warsaw and New Delhi. He organized and hosted in Canada the global Plenary Assembly of WFUNA, attended by 60 countries’ delegations and opened by the President of the [UN General Assembly].
During this period, Mr. Kharas participated in several international delegations, both governmental and non-governmental, including as the Canadian representative to the special session of the UN General Assembly on the UN’s fortieth anniversary attended by over 80 Presidents and Prime Ministers. He was also on the Canadian delegation to the re-signing of the UN Charter in San Francisco.
Mr. Kharas’ main goals in policy were to educate Canadians about international issues, strengthen the public image of the United Nations and maintain public pressure for Canadian support of multilateral institutions.
To further those objectives in a period of extraordinary public activism and pressure on international issues like disarmament within the context of the Cold War, Mr. Kharas undertook several intensive cross-Canada media and speaking tours with various Canadian Ambassadors and a former Prime Minister of Australia, speaking to both the general public and to educational institutions about current international issues. Most tours touched every province in Canada and involved dozens of media and public appearances by Mr. Kharas and Canadian Ambassadors Stephen Lewis, Alan Beesley, Gerard Pelletier and Douglas Roche, among others.
He organized many conferences on global issues across Canada attended by leading world figures including former Heads of State, Nobel Laureates, UN Under-Secretaries-General, Ambassadors and globally renowned experts. He co-hosted the visit to Canada of the UN Secretary-General. 
Mr. Kharas served as Secretary to the prestigious Pearson Medal jury for several years, an award given each year to a prominent Canadian for his/her work in international affairs. He was also a founding and active member of an advisory committee to the government on international affairs that met regularly with the highest levels.
He organized the first three national model United Nations for over 1,000 university-level students to learn about international affairs and multilateral institutions. Mr. Kharas organized experts in international affairs such as the former President of Costa Rica and ambassadors to the UN to lead the week-long simulations.
He published over twenty widely-distributed papers and articles on international issues such as disarmament, development, international finance, and strengthening the UN system.
During this period the [UN Secretary-General] awarded the UNAC the Peace Messenger award.
Mr. Kharas’ prior experience for three years involved international consulting to multinational corporations and to the governments of developing countries such as Togo. He also wrote a widely-used manual on Canadian immigration.
Mr. Kharas holds a Master of Arts in International Affairs from the [Norman Paterson School of International Affairs] at [Carleton University] in Ottawa. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts from Thiel College in Pennsylvania, graduating with magna cum laude and Departmental honours. He has done additional graduate studies in International Business and in International Law at the MBA and law faculties respectively of the University of Ottawa.
Sponsored by the Canadian Government, in 1992 he completed the Program for Senior Managers at the [Kennedy School] of [Harvard University.]