Carla Amina Baghajati

Carla Amina Baghajati (born Carla Siebrasse; 29 June 1966) is the media officer of the Islamic Faith Association in Austria and co-founder of the "Initiative muslimischer ÖsterreicherInnen" (loosely, "Initiative of Austrian Moslem men and women"). She has been described as one of the best-known faces of Islam in Austria. She was actually born in what was West Germany, but moved to Vienna as a student in 1987 and stayed.

Life Carla Siebrasse was born in Mainz-Mombach in West Germany (as it was known art that time). In 1987 she moved to Vienna to study, completing a training in stagecraft at the (subsequently renamed) Vienna Conservatory, where she was taught by Elfriede Ott. She then embarked on a course in Comparative literature, Arabistics and History.

As a child she read the compilation of Middle Eastern folk tales known as One Thousand and One Nights and became "fascinated by Islam". The Baghajatis have four children.

Works Between 1991 and 1994 Baghajati involved herself in theatre and leisure projects with Muslim children and young people. She then focused between 1995 and 1998 on setting up a Muslim kindergarten in Vienna, which emerged as the city's first bilingual German-Arabic kindergarten. She also began to become increasingly engaged in projects dedicated to the integration and assimilation of recent immigrants.

In 1999 Baghajati teamed up with her husband to co-found the "Initiative muslimischer ÖsterreicherInnen" (loosely, "Initiative of Austrian Moslem men and women"). Other founder members included the SPÖ politician, Omar Al-Rawi and two leading officials of the Austrian Islamic Faith Association, Mouddar Khouja and Andrea Saleh. Key objectives were media work and inter-faith dialogue: initiatives in which the group took part that captured press attention included, starting in 2013, nationwide "Open Mosque days". She is a board member of the "Christians and Muslims Platform" inter-faith association. In the context of her involvement with Vienna's Moslem religious community more broadly she was, in addition, appointed to the newly created post of media officer with the Austrian Islamic Faith Association (IGGÖ) by the then president of the IGGÖ, Anas Schakfeh.

Recognition In 2008 Baghajati received the Federal Honor Decoration ("Bundes-Ehrenzeichen") from the Minister for Education, in recognition of her unpaid engagement in inter-cultural dialogue.