Humanitarian Causes

The AHA Foundation

In response to ongoing abuses of women’s rights in the name of fundamentalist Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her supporters established the AHA Foundation in 2007 as a charitable organization to help protect and defend the rights of women in the West against militant Islam.

Through research, the dissemination of knowledge and outreach, the Foundation aims to combat several types of crimes against women, including the abridgement of the education of girls, female genital mutilation, forced marriages, honor violence, and honor killings.

The Foundation originally focused its efforts on supporting Muslim dissidents who had been victims of violence, abuse or neglect, or who had been threatened with violence, because of their political or religious beliefs.

In September 2008, the Foundation narrowed the current scope of its efforts to defend and protect the rights of women in the West against fundamentalist Islam. Going forward, the Foundation will focus the majority of its resources on this mission.

The Foundation’s Board of Directors governs its management and finances. The Board selects the Foundation’s president; establishes its policies, procedures, and operating strategies; and allocates its annual budget.

Activities of the AHA Foundation

The three main activities of the Foundation are to:

Investigate
Inform
Influence

Please consider making a donation to the AHA Foundation in support of their work.

You may contact the AHA Foundation by emailing: info@theahafoundation.org or visiting the website at www.theahafoundation.org

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

“Enlightenment is under threat. So is reason. So is truth. So is science, especially in the schools of America. I am one of those scientists who feels that it is no longer enough just to get on and do science. We have to devote a significant proportion of our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organized ignorance. We even have to go out on the attack ourselves, for the sake of reason and sanity. But it must be a positive attack, for science and reason have so much to give. They are not just useful, they enrich our lives in the same kind of way as the arts do. Promoting science as poetry was one of the things that Carl Sagan did so well, and I aspire to continue his tradition.” — Richard Dawkins

The RDF itself, on both sides of the Atlantic, will have its own vigorous program of activities which are well worth supporting in their own right:

1. Research. We intend to sponsor research into the psychological basis of unreason. What is it about human psychology that predisposes people to find astrology more appealing than astronomy? At what age are young people most vulnerable to unreason? What are the correlations between religiosity and superstition on the one hand, and intelligence, educational level, type of education etc. on the other? Research of this kind would be supported in the form of grants to universities in America and Britain or wherever the best research can be done.

2. Education. Within the limits imposed by the charity laws of the respective countries, we would seek to support rational and scientific education at all ages, and to oppose the subversion of scientific education, for example by the well-financed efforts to teach creationism in science classes. Depending on how much money we raise, we would hope to subsidize the publication of books, pamphlets, DVDs and other educational materials.

3. Website. We shall maintain a high quality website (RichardDawkinsFoundation.org), offering scientific, rationalist and humanist information and materials. This document is on that website, which is designed and maintained by Josh Timonen, a highly talented and expert web site designer (see Upper Branch Design). Please explore the website to see the range of stuff that is already there. Independently, Josh Timonen maintains another website, RichardDawkins.net, which is not directly concerned with RDF’s charitable activities but which acts as a lively forum for the exchange of information on scientific and rationalist issues.

4. Database of lecturers. We intend to keep a list, organized by regions in both America and Britain, of people, in universities and elsewhere, who might be willing to receive invitations to lecture. I receive a large number of such invitations myself. I accept as many as I can, but I can’t accept all of them. It would be extremely helpful to have, at my disposal, a list of younger people who might be less well known at this stage of their career, but who would probably give a much better lecture than I ever could. The database would be arranged on a region by region basis so that travel times to lecturing venues can be minimized.

5. Merchandise. Within the legal limits imposed on non-profit organizations in the two countries, we intend to supply, either free or at nominal prices, DVDs, tapes, podcasts, booklets etc. These will initially include such of my own television documentaries etc. as I am allowed to provide. For example, I have acquired, on behalf of RDF, the rights to my 1991 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children, entitled Growing Up in the Universe and originally broadcast by the BBC.

6. Publication. My own books are published by commercial publishers in Britain and America, but there are many excellent books on rationalism, humanism, secularism and atheism that are published only in one country. RDFRS, with its ‘dual nationality’, is well placed to arrange the publication of American books (videos, DVDs etc.) in Britain, and vice versa. At some time in the future, we might embark on some original publishing of our own.

7. Charitable giving by secularists to humanitarian good causes. Major disasters like earthquakes or tornados prompt a desire by decent people of all persuasions to help. Many would-be donors, for various reasons, prefer our gifts to go via secular, rather than religious, charities. RDFRS will hope to maintain a list of charities, worldwide, which are not associated with religious institutions or missions.

8. The OUT Campaign. See OutCampaign.org for details.

9. Consciousness-raising about labelling children. Nobody would describe a tiny child as a “Marxist child” or an “Atheist child”. Yet children are routinely labelled with the religion of their parents. RDF will work to raise public consciousness about this anomaly, and try to encourage people to think carefully before labelling children too young to know their own opinions.

10.Think for Yourself A related campaign of consciousness-raising for children. Children will be encouraged to think for themselves and ask for evidence, rather than necessarily accept tradition wisdom as true simply because it is hallowed by traditional authority.

11. Conferences. RDF may from time to time organize conferences on scientific or rationalistic matters, or may donate money to assist other organizations with similar aims with their conferences.

Please consider donating to the RDF. You can contact the Foundation by email at rdf@richarddawkinsfoundation.org or by visiting the website at www.richarddawkinsfoundation.org