Publisher's Vision
“Humanity has no nationality”
“This is my vision, what I live by and what keeps me going every day”
Wafa Kanan transcended the tragedy and turmoil of her past in Lebanon to become an American entrepreneur and a leader in the movement to uplift Middle Eastern societies and culture. Kanan is the founder of Unique Image Inc., integrated brand marketing and print media solutions agency with a client base that includes of some of the top fortune 500 corporations. Unique Image is an award winning agency and has received national industry acclaim for its work. Kanan has also been recognized and honored by numerous national and foreign government agencies for her innovative work on new trade relations from The United States to the Middle East by the governments of Dubai and Oman.
Unique Image is extremely rare as a woman-owned and operated printing facility and is responsible for the world’s leading Middle Eastern lifestyle magazine, ALO Hayati, read today by an estimated 1.2-million people. Kanan has never forgotten the destruction and violence she
witnessed as a young woman, and she has dedicated her life to the dream of a more peaceful Middle East, and one better understood by the rest of the world. In 2008, after 10 years of advocacy and contributing to US-based charity efforts on behalf of Middle Eastern communities and children’s organizations, Kanan formed the ALO Cultural Foundation, dedicated to providing diverse forms of humanitarian relief world wide.
Kanan was born in 1966 in Kuwait and raised in Beirut by parents of Lebanese decent. Her mother was a nurse and her father a merchant. The family was modest and generally conservative, although Kanan’s mother was determined that her daughter receive the best education possible, despite prevalent barriers to advancement for women.
Kanan came of age during the violent aftermath of Lebanon’s civil war, amid gunfire, bombings and death. As a teenager who routinely moved in and out of bomb shelters, she started to write poetry, penned in beautiful calligraphy and expressing her yearning for a better life. She wrote about a young girl’s first love and dreams for peace. Her words were inspired by the great socially conscious artists of the Middle East—Cheokai Bezai, Marcel Khalife, Nizar Kabbani—and also the music of the region’s greatest female singers, Umm Kulthum and Fairouz. Kanan found her voice in poetry and soon began reading her work on Free Lebanon underground radio. Kanan quickly earned a loyal following on college campuses. Her words of love gave voice to a subtle but passionate rebellion on behalf of young women like herself, but moreover on behalf of the people of Lebanon as they endured a fight for their freedom and future.
As a student, Kanan was interrogated by local militias who wrongfully suspected her of political involvement. She stood her ground as an artist and went on to graduate with honors from the University of Lebanon with a degree in Political Science and Business all while establishing her first business. Kanan began her entrepreneurial career by opening a travel agency and import-export business called Al-Wafa. She was determined to play an economic as well as social role in the forging of a new Lebanon. But the enterprise was barely launched when tragedy struck in the form of a bombing raid that destroyed many of her treasured belongings and shattered her hopes and dreams for the success of her business in the country.
In 1990, Kanan reluctantly decided to leave Lebanon. She was fortunate to be granted a visa to visit her uncle in Washington, DC, where she soon found that her reputation as poet and entrepreneur extended to the US. Armed with only an Arabic law book and an Arabic-English dictionary, she taught herself fluent English in a matter of months. A Lebanese real estate developer helped Kanan establish a new base of operations in Southern California, and she founded Unique Image in 1997. The enterprise brought together Kanan’s diverse areas of expertise in design, advertising, marketing, literary arts and social affairs.
In 2001 Unique Image and Kanan received their first industry awards from the Printing Association of Southern California, “PIASC Bronze medal” for best design and excellence in direct mail, followed by the “Award of Excellence” for printing in 2006, and most recently the 2008 Pewter Gold Ink Award from the North American Publishing Company (NAPCO) and Consumer Magazine. These were just a few of the many awards Kanan and her company have received during Unique Image’s first ten years including the lat. The US House of Representatives awarded Kanan the Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition, and in 2007 the State of California honored Unique Image for showing resourcefulness, innovative spirit and cultural pioneering for a new generation.
With Unique Image now well on its way its way to success, Kanan decided in 2004 to pursue her life-long dream of becoming a publisher. The jewel in her crown and business empire is now ALO Hayati, the premiere Middle Eastern cultural and lifestyle magazine, launched in 2005 and now distributed worldwide.
Renewed conflict in Lebanon in 2006 moved Kanan to expand her charitable works in the region. As a war survivor, and knowing personally the great needs children and woman in Lebanon would now face, she became a tireless fundraiser and advocate for them in the United States and abroad, raising over $500,000 in 2006 and 2007. Over a period of ten years, Unique Image has donated over 8% of the company’s net worth annually to these causes, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
In 2008 Kanan established The ALO Cultural Foundation. Its mission is to build stronger, healthier communities through social investment focusing on cultural exchange programs, women’s empowerment, youth mentoring, “voluntourism,” philanthropy, and diversity. The foundation sends delegations to key countries to enhance international relations. These delegations travel with a mission to expand the range and scope of their understanding of the region and its people, and to pioneer a spirit of global humanitarianism. The foundation has received much attention for its recent outreach to Hussein Balhas, a Lebanese boy with severe birth defects who is now receiving medical treatment in the United States with the aid of the foundation. These philanthropic works are only the latest
achievements for a remarkable woman who came to America with nothing but her words and her ideas, and went on to build a business and charity empire and fulfill her own version of the American Dream.
Wafa Kanan - Publisher
For More Information Contact Dawn Elder at 805-963-2415 or demgmt@aol.com
View Publisher's Bio
Download PDF Media Kit
Insider Sub stories