Meet Anjum Malik
VoyageAustin - Austin, TX
November 14, 2023
“Today we’d like to introduce you to Anjum Malik.
Anjum Malik is a long-time Austin, Texas, resident and a tireless advocate for improving access to education for all especially vulnerable and at-risk communities. Having immigrated to the United States from India in the 1970s, Anjum remains connected to the global community through her work, the focus of which currently is supporting refugees and immigrants build a new life in the US. Anjum has founded and leads a nonprofit organization – Global Impact Initiative and an NGO, the Alhambra-US Chamber. In addition, along with her husband, she co-founded the HOFT Institute, a multi dimensional corporation serving the international education community in Austin and beyond. The impact of Anjum’s work is immense and we are excited to share her personal journey.
Hi Anjum, I’m so excited to have you on the platform. You have accomplished so much and have touched many people’s lives throughout your career. What has helped you become who you are today?
‘Education was the cornerstone of my success.
I was born and raised in India, and my first and best teachers were my parents. They made it clear that education was the number one priority for their children. Teaching us was a duty for them but also a great source of joy. That’s how I learned that education offers a pathway to a better life – not only in the sense of material comfort but, more importantly, a life that is morally and ethically sound.
This reverence for education and the joy of learning became the guiding principle for my husband and I as we raised our own children. Today, as they have grown into adulthood, I am proud to see in each of them the flame of respect for education burning brightly.
Education has also become the center of my professional career and mission. In 1980, my husband and I started a family business: the HOFT Institute, which offers educational programming, including ESL training, tutoring and test preparation. Over the past four decades, the Institute has served around 190,000 students from over 60 countries.
In 2009, I took my mission of helping others through education into a new venture: the Alhambra-US Chamber, an NGO dedicated to promoting educational partnerships globally. I am especially pleased with the Chamber’s work in the Middle East, where we found enormous interest from governments to provide their citizens with a better life by modernizing and invigorating their institutions of higher learning.
When COVID-19 turned our world upside down, the vulnerable were impacted the most. Many lost their jobs or had trouble gaining employment, children struggled with access to their schools, which had gone remote. I launched the Global Impact Initiative (Gii) to address these challenges.’”
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