2024: Introducing Discovery Series on YouTube @NoTruthWithoutBeauty
2022-2024

Thank you to the following institutions for your interest in my book:
"No Truth Without Beauty: God, the Qur'an, and Women's Rights".
 
Enjoyed meeting your faculty, students, staff-members and wider networks!

Boston College
Northwestern University in Qatar
Villanova University
AT&T
Acton Institute
Liberty Fund
Caknurian Urban Sufism, Indonesia
2022: Release of book on gender equality!


Part of the Sustainable Development Goals Series co-branded by
the United Nations, Palgrave Macmillan and Springer Nature.

This is a gender equality title, i.e. SDG#5.

"No Truth Without Beauty:
God, the Qur'an, and Women's Rights"

Author: Leena El-Ali
Foreword: Khaled Abou El Fadl

Free to download from the Springer website
and on Kindle,

Printed copies available
from your usual bookseller.
The Anera annual dinner was back in 2021 in DC! Grateful to the team
and all supporters for terrific development and humanitarian work.
2020 - A year like no other


In this challenging year of a global pandemic, efforts were focused on the following:
mediating COVID-19 community conflicts in Bangladesh, supporting NGO responses to the Beirut port blast of August 4th against the backdrop of a year-long financial meltdown and absentee government, and countering hate speech around elections in South Asia.

Sustainable development in local communities in Tunisia
2019


Ma3an is a 5-year (2018-2023) community resilience and empowerment project in Tunisia funded by USAID and being implemented by FHI360, in partnership with local and international organizations, in 30 communities and 15 governorates.

Bona Smarts is privileged to work with such talented peers to develop sustainable local models of development, models that are driven by the community for the community and able to meet any challenge in the future.

Building capacity around electoral violence in Libya
2018-2019


Following intensive consultations with members of Libyan civil society to better understand local-level dynamics and specific challenges, we co-facilitated trainings in conflict resolution, election cycle dynamics, international best practices, and how to counter disinformation and hate speech in the political process.

In total, forty five Libyan activists were trained.

Many thanks to our partner,


Coordinating the airlift of medical and other relief supplies to Puerto Rico following hurricanes Irma and Maria, which devastated the U.S. territory's infrastructure from end to end in September 2017.

The picture to the left shows the staging area secured for drop-off of supplies in New Jersey - Sterns  Trailer Rental - a contributing organization.

By Oct 10, 2017, 85 tons of supplies had been received from U.S. mainland hospitals, volunteer doctors and other private donors, thanks to outreach efforts of the American Family Airlift team. The first shipment of 18,000 doses of insulin were airlifted to San Juan by Jet Blue free-of-charge on Oct 10 for delivery to the University Pediatric Hospital of Puerto Rico.
LIFE (Lebanese International Finance Executives) event: World Bank, Washington DC, 2017.
Training in Business Finance and Investment Literacy
1- We offer workshops to middle-ranking and senior professionals in how to understand and use financial reports - all in one day. Our partnership with Color Accounting International means that we deploy a visual methodology with physical, take-home kits to offer a unique, AHA!-filled experience to everyone from investment banking professionals and entrepreneurs to non-profit executives.

Photo: Training in Washington, DC, 2016.

2- Our tailored workshops in investment education integrate the above and go further to ensure participants can ably oversee their organizations' trust or endowment funds - and their 401-Ks!

Jack Hirsbrunner, Leena El-Ali, and Caroline Mousset.


Supporting Cultural Events


Fundraiser for the Museum of 
Art of Ponce, Puerto Rico

The occasion: 3 paintings of the magi - or wise men - by the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens were reunited at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, in Spring-Summer 2015 for the first time in more than 130 years. 

Painted in 1618, these paintings are now owned by 3 different institutions: the middle-aged king by the National Gallery in Washington DC; the young king by the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp, Belgium; and the old king by the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico.

Fundarising event at Burberry, City Center, Washington, DC, 2015.

With South and South-East Asian civil society members in Sri Lanka, 2015.

Guest Lecturing at the Maldives National University, 2015.
Workshop in The Maldives, 2015.