Ice climbing school has been opened in Meygoon in north of Tehran, Iran. Ice climbing is the activity of ascending inclined ice formations. Usually, ice climbing refers to roped and protected climbing of features such as icefalls, frozen waterfalls, and cliffs and rock slabs covered with ice refrozen from flows of water. For the purposes of climbing, ice can be broadly divided into two spheres, alpine ice and water ice. Mizan/ Mohammad Khademosheikh / Tehran times /

Ashraf Qandehari-Bahadorzadeh was a humanitarian and the co-founder of the Kahrizak nursing home, south of Tehran.

She devoted her life to helping those in need and was praised and honored for her charity works. She joined the founding committee of Kahrizak in 1972 and helped building the charity complex as we know it today.

In her interviews she has described Kahrizak at the time of taking on its responsibility as “…a wreckage with two small rooms and full of stink. Patients were in the worst possible condition. There wasn’t any healthy water and you could see the lack of amenities. Also the stack of trash worsened the situation.”

She couldn’t bring herself to leave the place in that state, so she talked to Dr. Mohammad Reza Hakimzadeh (the late founder of Kahrizak) and decided to help improve the place. Now Kahrizak has been developed into a town in south of Tehran and has a campus covering 420,000 sq.m. with 130,000 sq.m of built-up area. 500 male and 1100 female patients reside in 22 separate units. About two thirds of the patients are elderly and one third are physically disabled. The patients are so satisfied and well provided that “They don’t like to go back home,” as Qandehari stated.

She was also the founder of The Ladies Charitable Society consisting of 3000 members today, who were among the first to rush to the rescue in Roudbar earthquake. They took in about 650 orphans. Later they did the same with Bam’s earthquake survivors. Now, they support 500 disadvantaged women and children.

In 2014, Qandehari received an honorary award from Mohammad-Hassan Aboutorabi-Fard, the then first deputy speaker of Majlis (the Iranian parliament).

Qandehari’s some other contributions and activities include performing voluntary service in Kahrizak, holding art courses for disadvantaged women, writing books on managing the charity groups and their activities and doing many international activities on Entrepreneurship.

Qandehari-Bahadorzadeh passed away on February 23, 2017 at the age of 91. May she rest in peace!

Balam Jerk, a 400-year-old village in Minudasht city, the northern province of Golestan, with only 210 families is almost unknown.  The inhabitants mostly pursue farming, livestock breeding, and on top of everything, sericulture, silk weaving, and yarn spinning. Women of Balam Jerk village are mostly occupied with weaving silk and spinning yarn to make an honest living. They obtain silk from scratch by rearing larvae of silkworms to form cocoons.  The silk cloth and yarns woven and spun skillfully will be exported to other cities or in some cases to other countries. While the village has untapped potentials for growth and becoming a tourist hub in the province, people are experiencing economic deprivation. Tehran Times / Fatemeh Abedi

Iran will take part at the 2017 Asian Canoe Slalom Championships to be held in Nakhon Nayok, Thailand. The competition will be held in Thailand from February 22 to 24.

Iran will participate in the competition with three women and eight men rowers. Roxanna Razeghean, Donya Mohammadi and Faezeh Ronasi are Iranian women participants.

Iranian men’s team consists of Amir Mohammad Fattahpour, Mehdi Karimi, Homayoun Mohammadpour, Amir Rezanejhad, Reza Khalili, Danial Khosravi, Mahan Edrisi and Mohammad Mehdi Konarang.

The Asian Canoeing Championship is a Canoeing championship organized by the Asian Canoe Confederation for competitors from the Asian countries. / Tehran times /

Three Iranian short films won awards at the Atlas Awards International Film Festival, which was held in Boston from January 15 to 31.

“Hunting” directed by Zahra Jafari won the Best Art Film Award while “Silence”, also directed by Jafari, brought Saeid Hesari the award for best cinematographer.

The acclaimed short animation “Junk Girl” co-directed by Mohammad Zare’ and Shalaleh Kheiri won the Best Production Design Award for the directors.

“Junk Girl” is an adaptation of a poem from Tim Burton’s book “The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories”.

The animation is about a lonely girl who is ignored by other people because of her strange appearance.

/ Tehran times /