Volunteer Name:  Yasmin Dharani

Location:  Los Angeles, California

Duration of Assignment:  Ongoing Remote Assignment (serving from home base)

Task:

• Communicates student and faculty achievements and the quality of the facilities and curriculum  to raise awareness about  the world class education provided by the Aga Khan Academies
• Increases traffic from parents of potential students to the  Academies website 
• Improves the website’s global visibility through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) methods that increase the Academies’ Google search rankings 

Impact: 

• The efforts of the Communication Team are helping contribute to increased website traffic and attention from parents of potential students as well as college admission staff. 

Full Story:

Yasmin Dharani has been volunteering with the Aga Khan Academies in the area of communications for the past 18 months. However, Yasmin’s assignment with the Aga Khan Academies communications team is ongoing and long term.  Her history of volunteering goes back to 30 years ago when she served as the Honorary Secretary of the Grants and Review Board for the USA. In June 2014, she coincidentally connected with someone who worked with the Academies and was offered the chance to get involved. For Yasmin, TKN provided the perfect opportunity to volunteer again because it was flexible and had global reach. Having herself attended the Aga Khan School in Dar es Salaam, her interest was piqued.

The nature of her work evolves as additional needs are identified. Her role has expanded over time to encompass several areas, primarily related to increasing the visibility of the Academies as the agency grows and expands. In the long term, there will be a network of 18 Aga Khan Academies in 14 countries. Currently, the schools in Mombasa, Kenya and Hyderabad, India offer grades 1–12 in a day and residential program. A third Academy in Maputo, Mozambique is operating as a primary school.

"The Aga Khan Academies is a dynamic initiative, and there are often exciting opportunities to do new things,” she said. “I am lucky to have the opportunity to contribute in a variety of ways and add to their global visibility.” She also noted, “As a member of the communications team, one of our goals is to tell the story of the Academies by recognizing students’ accomplishments and the role of faculty members, facilities and curriculum. Anyone who visits the website should know that the world-class education the Academies provide is available to anyone despite his or her financial standing.”

And although there are many opportunities to increase the awareness, “The Academies already have global recognition,” said Yasmin. Microsoft Corporation has recognized both the Aga Khan Academies in Mombasa and Hyderabad as “Showcase Schools”, an honour given to only 150 schools worldwide. The Aga Khan Academy in Hyderabad is also ranked third in India for top boarding schools. Graduates from both get accepted to highly selective colleges and universities in the United States and internationally. 

Yasmin holds the value of these types of educational opportunities highly. She immigrated to the United States from Karachi, Pakistan and went to college in Southern California, where she completed a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in Teaching. She later pursued a Master of Business Administration, which was not common for women at that time. “It was the best decision I made,” she said.

Yasmin works remotely for her TKN assignment out of her home in Los Angeles and is thankful that she can balance her commitments with the Academies and the responsibilities of her day job. “It has been easy to make connections with the staff at the Academies, and the differences in the time zones have worked perfectly,” she remarked. She has been consistently inspired by the dedication and commitment of the Academies’ staff, especially the college counsellors.

One area of focus of the communications team has been to improve the Google ranking of the Academies website through search engine optimization (SEO). They recruited the help of Nadir Hussain, an expert in SEO, whose advice has stuck. Nadir taught the team that, in order for a website to improve its ranking, it needs to house “great content.”

Great content translates in part into adding more detailed information to the website so that Google recognizes the quality of the institution and, as a result, triggers better search rankings. Another important part of improving search rankings has been using keywords like “boarding school” or “IB school” on the website. This has a two-fold effect of providing clear descriptors of what the Academies are as well as attracting parents, teachers or college admissions officers from around the globe.

Another area where Yasmin is adding value is with continual updates to the Wikipedia page. She takes pride that her content is factual and backed with supporting evidence, and she has even brought her daughter on board to help code and inform her of changes from a tech perspective. “I’m very fortunate that our Jamat lets everyone volunteer and get involved,” she said.

Yasmin’s and the team’s hard work is paying off and it shows through metrics like an increase in visitors, number of pages visited, and the length of time spent on the website. The numbers naturally increase when the site is actively promoted in articles, during times of high publicity like a visit from Mawlana Hazar Imam, and peaks at points in the admissions cycle. However, the team is aiming to increase the number of visitors more consistently, which will happen with updated, engaging stories that are people-centred.

“Every day, something new happens at the Aga Khan Academies to report on, like a football match, a dance performance or win at a debate tournament,” said Yasmin. “This work is so important not only because education is a core tenet of our beliefs, but also because the students at the Academies excel in more ways than just academically, and it is our job to highlight their well-rounded development.” She added, “For example, the Academies have added their own components to the IB curriculum in areas such as pluralism and ethics, which help differentiate our programme and make it unique.” 

Yasmin is passionate about the Academies because of its mission, and she emphasized, “The goal is that students, after they receive a college education, can become leaders in their local communities and, in time, give back to their communities. These are the stories we need to tell.”

Yasmin’s excellent contribution and ongoing dedication on this assignment are highly appreciated by the Academies. Her work, as a key member on their Communications team, is helping to enhance the visibility, reputation and impact of the Academies.