SAF Maldives Chapter's Introduction
Founder's PrologueDuring our first visit to Malé, which took place in January 2001, we were received by the President of the Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. The President had recently hosted the 9th SAARC summit in Malé, and was very supportive of the SAF’s activities. He was particularly keen on using information and communications technologies to help connect people living in the numerous isolated and remote islands of the Maldives. As a result, the SAF established its first information technology project on the island constituency of Adh Atoll. The project was implemented by Hon. Ibrahim Zaki, the first chairperson of the Maldives chapter of the SAF, and is in keeping with the SAF’s objectives of imparting education to young people to enhance their efficiency and productivity, while creating a strong sense of regional cooperation and solidarity among people in South Asia. |
It was an amazing experience particularly for the children of landlocked countries such as Nepal and Bhutan who had never before seen the sea. The theme of the camp was ‘protection of the environment’, a subject of great importance to the region as over 1,000 small, low-lying coral islands of the Archipelago are endangered by the rise in sea-levels caused by global warming. - - -
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