Sigrid Rausing Trust awards Alexandria Trust 1-year grant

London, 16 March 2016 – The Sigrid Rausing Trust has awarded the Alexandria Trust a one-year grant from their Trustees' Small Grants Fund.

The grant will support the development of the Trust's translation project which aims to bring the great works of academic literature in an accessible format to those whose first language is Arabic.

The Alexandria Trust is developing a radical new contribution to transforming learning in the humanities and social sciences in the Arab world. We aim to translate and publish analyses of seminal works in the social sciences and humanities into Arabic, strengthening the comprehension and critical thinking of Arab youth, and thereby their life chances and opportunities for engagement and dialogue.

Earlier in 2015, Emirati scholar and art enthusiast Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi launched the translation project by supporting the Arabic translation of the first two titles from the Macat library. The project has since then received further support from the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, the Sultan Qaboos Higher Center for Culture and Science in Oman, the British International School in Cairo and Egyptian businesswoman Dayna Bahig.

Sigrid Rausing Trust is a UK grant making foundation, founded in 1995 by Sigrid Rausing to support human rights globally. Since then, the Trust has given away approximately £250 million to human rights organisations all over the world.