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The Asper Foundation (a private family foundation)
and the CanWest Global Foundation (the corporate foundation of CanWest Global
Communications Corp.) have undertaken and developed major initiatives locally,
nationally and internationally supporting the areas of Jewish causes, arts and
culture, community development, human rights, literacy and education, journalism
and communication studies, media and healthcare. In the recent past, over $120
million has been donated to various charitable causes through these two
foundations.
In April 2003, The Asper Foundation, in joint partnership with the Government of
Canada, Province of Manitoba, City of Winnipeg and The Forks North Portage
Partnership, announced the establishment of The Canadian Museum for Human Rights
in Winnipeg, Canada. The Asper Foundation donated $20 million and was the
driving force behind the creation of a distinctive,
architecturally exceptional Museum that will help to eliminate intolerance
through recognition of human rights as the foundation for human equality,
dignity and freedom worldwide. A major component of the Museum will be a national student program that
will sponsor 20,000 high school students and their chaperones from across
Canada to visit the Museum each year. In 2008, Bill C48 was passed unanimously
in Parliament establishing the Museum as a National Federal Museum, the fifth
National museum and the first to be established outside of the National Capital
Region.
Other major Winnipeg projects supported by The Asper Foundation in the last few
years have been $10 million donations to each of the Winnipeg Foundation and the
Jewish Foundation of Manitoba and developments including the I. H. Asper
Clinical Research Institute at St. Boniface General Hospital, I. H. Asper School
of Business, the Izzy Asper Jazz Performances Series, The Asper Foundation
Lecture Series, the Asper Jewish Community Campus, the Lyric outdoor theatre at
Assiniboine Park, the Asper Helping Hand Initiative as well as the former Asper Centre
for Entrepreneurship at the University of Manitoba (now the Stu Clark Centre for
Entrepreneurship). The Asper Foundation is
particularly proud of its Human Rights and Holocaust Studies Program for high
school students. Since 1997, almost 9,400 students from all backgrounds from
over 116 communities across Canada have participated in this
initiative.
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The Asper Family (from left to right) - Leonard, Babs, David and
Gail Asper |
