Leila Ghandi

Leila Ghandi (; born July 26, 1980), nicknamed "The Moroccan Titouan Lamazou" or "Bent Battouta" (The daughter of Battuta), is a Moroccan photographer and journalist.

Early life Ghandi was born in Casablanca in 1980. She is the daughter of Amal Alami and Ali Ghandi, former Director General of the Moroccan Association of the pharmaceutical industry, who died March 13, 2010. She first studied at the Théophile Gautier primary school in the district of Maârif, and in 1991 continued her secondary education at the Lycée Lyautey in Casablanca. After obtaining her baccalauréat from Lycée Lyautey in 1998, Ghandi joined BEM Management School in Bordeaux and studied international business from 1998 to 2002. In 2004, she obtained her Master at Sciences Po, Paris, in Strategic Marketing in Politics. During her studies at Sciences Po, between 2002 and 2004, she participated in an academic exchange with the University of Portsmouth and obtain a degree in European Business and Management.

Career

Chroniques de Chine In 2003, Ghandi traveled to China. A year later, she returned to this country to work at the Franco-Chinese training center in Beijing, sponsored by the Embassy of France in China for a European project.

After these travels, she decided to publish all her notes in a book. This was published in December 2006 as Chronicles from China by Casablanca publisher Layla Chaouni's Editions Le Fennec. The preface was written by Dominique Reynié, who had been her professor at Sciences Po in Paris. The same year, she won the "Trophy of Success in the Feminine" at the Luxembourg Palace in Paris, delivered by the French Secretary of State for Urban Policy Fadela Amara. In her speech, Amara said: "I am deeply moved and very happy to award you this trophy because you represent exactly the style of free and modern women that must exist worldwide." In 2009, she also received a literary award from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for this book.

It is a series of travel documentaries which highlight the culture and lifestyle of each country, through human stories, where she tries to dine and stay with the locals.

During her trip to Palestine in 2013, she met several personalities including Michel Warschawski and Mahmoud Abbas, whom she interviewed in his office at the Mukataa in Ramallah.

With this episode, she won in the same year the Journalist Award in TV category, organized by the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue Between Cultures, advancing journalists of France 2 and Arte.

In 2013, Ghandi participated in the documentary of Serge Moati "Méditerranéennes – mille et un combats" (Mediterranean – a thousand and one battles), broadcast on France 2 in the program Infrarouge.

Her episode "Leila Ghandi in Tunisia" was in competition at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival in June 2013.

The program Voyages avec Leila Ghandi has been shown in three seasons, and as of June 2016, 18 episodes have been broadcast:

Personal life According to TelQuel, Leila Ghandi earned a salary around 20 000 dirhams per month (US$2000).

During the French tour of jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater in 2000, Ghandi accompanied her as a dancer and percussionist. Further, she is also a member of the Brazilian group Batala.

Exhibitions In December 2005, Ghandi exhibited some specimens around the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris.

She exhibited the same series at the Art Lounge Gallery of Beirut in April 2006, under the name of "Timeless China & spiritual, portraits of Tibet".

In January 2007, she participated with four other photographers in the exposition "Regards (de) marocains sur le monde", held at the Church of the Sacred Heart of Casablanca.

In 2011, Ghandi won the first prize of the European Union-African Union Professional Photography Competition "African Beauty in all its states" as a representative for North Africa. Also, her photos have been exhibited at the headquarters of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Africa Hall and the Alliance française of Addis Ababa during the , held on January 30 and 31, 2011.

In March/April 2012, she exhibited her photographic work "Vies à vies" at the Art Gallery CDG of Rabat.

Awards Trophée EuroMed de la Réussite au Féminin delivered in Luxembourg Palace by Fadela Amara (2008) Literary prize of United States Agency for International Development (2009) Opinion Leader by Search for Common Ground (2010) Femme d'excellence by Marseille-Provence 2013 (2012) Mediterranean Journalist Award by Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue Between Cultures (2013) Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters (2014)