NEW: Ismaili Ignition launches interview series: 'Ismaili Families Speak!'
We're pleased to announce Ismaili Ignition's new interview series Ismaili Families Speak!
Parents have always faced challenges in raising their children, many persisting from societal changes that took place when they were children while others are new. However, today the pace of change is so rapid, new challenges arise before parents have understood, much less addressed, those from just a few years ago.
In this series, we'll be talking to parents -- both in the West and East -- about raising their children as Ismailis, including the challenges they face and solutions they've tried. We hope their insights will help other parents facing similar challenges.
For example, although it seems we've had smart phones for ever, and can't imagine a time without them, the iPhone was launched just 12 years ago and, in less than a decade, has unleashed a tsunami of problems and benefits for parents and society, generally. Similarly, social changes, unimaginable just a generation ago, have swept over Western society.
On top of coping with these, many Ismaili parents face critical issues they never expected when they immigrate to new countries. Earlier Ismaili immigrants are still trying to adequately resolve many of these issues despite facing them for over 40 years, through two generations of children.
In this series, we'll be talking to parents -- both in the West and East -- about raising their children as Ismailis, including the challenges they face and solutions they've tried. We hope their insights will help other parents facing similar challenges.
To keep our conversations short and practical, we follow a common question template with most of our guests. Find future episodes at ismailiignition.org.
For our inagural episode we have Khairunissa and Fez Meghani from Dallas, Texas, in the United States. Fez was born in Karachi, grew up in Dubai, UAE, and moved to the USA in the summer of 1993. Khairunissa was also born in Karachi and moved to the United States in the summer of 1995. They were married in June of 2003 and have a 10-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy.
Help us find Ismaili parents we can learn from
Raising children, well, as Ismailis -- and more than just compassionate, ethical people -- is perhaps one of the most important tasks we face as a community. If we're going to accomplish it successufully, we need to tap the wisdom and insight of the community -- especially those parents who have found ways to overcome any of the many challenges they face today.
If you know of Ismaili parents, anywhere in the world, who have tried new or interesting approaches (successful or not), to address any of the challenges parents face in raising children as Ismailis that we can all learn from, please contact us here.
