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Kuwait Health Minister Ahmad Awadhi handed over the State of Kuwait Prize for the Control of Cancer, Cardiovascular Diseases and Diabetes in the Eastern Mediterranean Region to King Hussein Cancer Centre (KHCC) Director General Asem Mansour.
The award ceremony took place during the 71st session of the WHO Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean, in recognition of the KHCC’s significant achievements in cancer control.
Mansour stressed that the award reflects the support of the King Hussein Cancer Foundation’s (KHCF) board of trustees, chaired by HRH Princess Ghida Talal, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra.
This recognition is the result of the collective efforts of the centre’s team, local and international partners, and most importantly patients, whose resilience in their fight against cancer continues to inspire.
Mansour has served as the centre’s director general since 2012, and currently chairs the executive committee of the Jordan Breast Cancer Programme.
He is a consultant in diagnostic radiology, specialising in neuroradiology and a fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists (FRCR) in London. His academic qualifications include a master’s degree in healthcare management from Carnegie Mellon University and a master’s degree in public health from Liverpool John Moores University.
The prize is one of the region’s most prestigious medical awards, honouring those who have made significant contributions to cancer control through research, innovation or exceptional medical service.
The event featured the presence of Hanan Balkhy, WHO regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean Region, and Hanan Kuwari, Qatar’s minister of health.
source/content: jordantimes.com (headline edited)
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This recognition is the result of the collective efforts of the centre’s team, local and international partners, and most importantly, the patients (JT File photo)
Making history by being the first Jordanian and Arab female doctor to enter Gaza, Asil Jallad assisted in delivering 500 babies during her two-month voluntary work in the war-torn Strip.
Jallad, an obstetrics and gynecology specialist, has volunteered with the International Medical Corps and arrived to Gaza during the sixth week of the Israeli offensive on October 7.
With a daily workload of 10 to 15 childbirths, Jallad said she was extending medical assistance to Gaza’s most marginalised populations: Women and children.
Citing a UN report, Jallad said that every 10 minutes, a child is born in Gaza. Currently, between 50,000 to 60,000 women are pregnant, and there are approximately 155,000 women, including pregnant women and wet nurses, in need of medical attention.
Reflecting on her experiences, Jallad hailed the resilience of the women of Gaza, whom she described as the “true heroes amidst the chaos of war”.
“When I decided to go to Gaza, they kept telling me that I am a hero, but when you see the women of Gaza, you realise that you are merely a small heroine compared to the heroes you see every day,” she said.
In her role at the field hospital in the southern region by the International Medical Corps, Jallad said she had focused on providing comprehensive care for pregnant women, conducting surgeries, and offering consultations on sexual and reproductive health.
Despite grappling with limited medical equipment and resources, the International Medical Corps clinics in the field hospital in Gaza provide medical aid to 700 to 1000 patients every day, with the female clinic alone attending to 100 to 120 patients daily.
Jallad has witnessed firsthand the dire consequences of malnutrition among women in Gaza, leading to blood deficiency, dehydration and reproductive health issues.
She emphasised the “profound” challenges faced by pregnant women, including the dire shortage of postnatal care facilities. “Due to the limited number of beds available, pregnant women are compelled to vacate the center within two hours of giving birth, depriving them of crucial recovery time and support.”
“Pregnant women should have 10.5 hemoglobin levels as minimum, however I saw a pale pregnant woman with 4 hemoglobin level walking on her feet to support her other children in the tent.”
“One of the most touching cases, is when people come to consult to get pregnant, because the six months of war means six months in a woman’s life, and age is considered the most important factor in the pregnancy and birth.”
According to UNFPA, around 155,000 pregnant women and new mothers in Gaza are in desperate need of basic healthcare, while 690,000 women and girls in Gaza lack access to menstrual hygiene supplies and privacy with some reports of contraceptive pills being taken to avoid the unhygienic menstrual conditions.
Jallad said that the dire living conditions of displaced Palestinians, cramped into tiny tents with inadequate facilities, exacerbate the humanitarian crisis.
She decried the scarcity of essential medical supplies and the impact of restrictions on medication entry imposed by Israeli authorities.
As the conflict continues, Jallad warns of the looming threat of chronic health problems and blood clots due to the lack of medical aid delivery to the strip. She stresses the urgent need for increased access to medical care, particularly for pregnant women and new mothers who are struggling to survive amidst the devastation.
“Deformities will be seen in the next few years, or in the next 10-20 years, as we don’t know what are the ingredients used in the bombs.”
Jallad shed light on the mental health toll of the conflict, with many individuals unaware of the whereabouts or well-being of their families.
Despite recent efforts to improve medical facilities in certain areas, Jallad raised concerns about the neglect of the north, where millions of refugees reside. She underlined the urgent need for sustained international support to address the ongoing medical and humanitarian needs across Gaza.
Seven months since Israeli strikes began in response to October 7 attack, more than 10,000 women have been reportedly killed in Gaza, among them 6,000 mothers. Some 19,000 children have been orphaned, UN Women said.
The UN agency’s survey of 360 respondents, including 182 women in Rafah, revealed disturbing data that more than six in 10 pregnant women reported complications, including 95 per cent with urinary tract infections and 80 per cent with anemia. In households with nursing mothers, 72 per cent reported challenges in breastfeeding and in meeting the nutritional needs of their babies.
Jordanian Fashion Designer Kish Jeane, breaks Guinness World Records by making the longest cape in the world for Lebanese superstar, Najwa Karam.
The cape is 55.7m long, with 118m of fabric and 3m of gold reflective leather used to craft it.
Jeane, who is known for his use of reflective leather in his designs, designed the cape drawing from Greek mythology for inspiration . He also added the name of Najwa’s most recent album “Charisma” in Arabic calligraphy on the back of the cape.
Najwa Karam also wore a gold cage shoulder piece with a white jumpsuit, also designed by Jeane. She wore both outfits to her welcoming event in Jordan, celebrating her participation in the Jerash Festival .
Kish Jeane will also be the first Jordanian designer to participate in New York Fashion Week, as he will be presenting his Spring Summer 2024 Collection there.
Under the patronage of H.H. Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, Sharjah Centre for Islamic Economics (SCIE) at the university organised a ceremony to honour the winners of the Al Qasimia University Award for Islamic Economics Research, held in the university theatre, in the presence of the President of the University, members of the Board of Trustees, the University Rector, deans of colleges, and members of the Academic, and administrative bodies and students.
Professor Jamal Salem Al Tarifi, President of Al Qasimia University, honoured the award winners and congratulated them on the quality of research presented in Islamic economics studies.
Professor Dr. Awad Al Khalaf, Acting Chancellor of the University, expressed his highest thanks and gratitude to the Ruler of Sharjah, and founder of the University, for His Highness’s generous patronage of the award, as this sponsorship adds value to one of the most important scientific activities that contribute to the renaissance of the economic sector, and the dissemination of the principles and values of Islamic economics, according to scientific foundations, and qualitative scientific research taking into consideration the real need of building a solid economy that achieves UAE development.
The list of researchers included honouring Dr. Badr Al Zaman Khamqani, from the Republic of Algeria, winner in the field of economics, in his research entitled: “A proposed strategy to accelerate the pace of digital transformation in Islamic banks.” Dr. Ahmed Abdel Rahman Ahmed Al Majali, from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, won in the field of law, in his research entitled: “blockchain technology compatibility with Islamic financial transactions.” Professor Dr. Aisha Muniza, from the Maldives, won in the field of economics, in her research entitled: “Development of a digital Islamic social stock exchange”.
Dr. Yasser Al Hosani, SCIE Director, announced the launch of the fourth edition of the award under the title “Smart Islamic Financial Engineering”.
Algerian period drama The Last Queen and Iraqi film Hanging Gardens were among those recognised.
Films from Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt were among the top winners of this year’s Amman International Film Festival.
The Black Iris Awards ceremony was held on Tuesday at the Royal Film Commission in Amman. The event marked the conclusion of the fourth run of the festival. This year, the festival screened 56 films from 19 countries, including feature narratives, documentaries and short works. The films all marked their Jordanian premiere, with some making their worldwide or regional debut.
Hafreiat by Spanish filmmaker Alex Sarda was the winner of the Black Iris Audience Award for best foreign film. The documentary revolves around a Spanish archeological mission in northern Jordan where local workers excavate the land, working long hours for minute wages. At the centre of the story is Abo Dya, a Palestinian-Jordanian, working tirelessly to provide for his family, hoping to better their lives despite the criminal record that undermines his ambitions.
The Palestinian film Lyd, directed by Rami Younis and Sarah Ema Friedland, was named winner of two awards, including the Jury Award for best Arab feature documentary and the Fipresci Award, held in conjunction with the International Federation of Film Critics.
The film puts a spotlight on Lyd. A city with a 5,000-year history, Lyd was once a Palestinian capital and in the early 20th century was a thriving metropolis. Lyd highlights this rich history while also highlighting the bloodier aspects of its past, namely the massacres and expulsion of Palestinians by Israeli forces in 1948, after which the state of Israel was created and the city became known as Lod.
The documentary interviews survivors of the Nakba, Palestinians living in Lyd, as well as those in exile. The film juxtaposes the real-life footage with animation that treads into sci-fi territory, imagining what Lyd could have been like if not for the bloody events of the Nakba.
The Jury Award for Arab short film was given to two films – Hamza: A Ghost Chasing Me by Palestinian director Ward Kayyaland Trinou by Tunisian filmmaker Nejib Kthiri. The Black Iris for best Arab short, meanwhile, was granted to My Girlfriend by Egyptian filmmaker Kawthar Younis.
The Special Mention prize for first-time documentary editor was awarded to Zakaria Jaber, director and editor of Anxious in Beirut. The documentary explores the trauma endured by denizens of the Lebanese capital in a film that aims to find a semblance of coherence within the tumultuous effects that have gripped Beirut.
Fragments from Heavenby Moroccan filmmaker Adnane Baraka was named winner of the Black Iris Award for best Arab feature documentary. The film follows a group of Amazigh nomads in Morocco as they search for bits of a Martian meteorite that landed in the desert in 2013, hoping it would better their lives.
The Special Mention prize for first-time lead actor/actress was awarded to two talents. Lebanese actress Marilyn Naaman was awarded for her lead role in Mother Valley. The film, set in the Lebanese mountains in the mid-20th century, follows a young wife as she faces the pressures of patriarchal society.
Egyptian actress Rana Khattab was also awarded for her role in the film Rat Hole. The feature, directed by Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed El Samman, follows a telemarketer working for a non-profit organisation trying to convince people to donate to various causes. The film pulls the curtain on the darker side of the Egyptian non-governmental organisations that scam people on the pretence of charity donations.
The Special Mention prize for first-time scriptwriter was awarded to Algerian filmmaker Adila Bendimerad, the director of the period drama The Last Queen. Bendimerad wrote the script for the acclaimed film with Algerian director Damien Ounouri.
The Iraqi film Hanging Gardenswon the Jury Award for Arab feature narrative. Directed by Ahmed Yassin Al Daradji, the film revolves around a 12-year-old boy who scavenges a landfill for sellable metal and plastic. He comes across a human-size doll, presumably brought and left behind by US soldiers. The boy names the doll Salwa and decides to keep and care for it; bathing it and trying to keep it from prying eyes. Soon, however, his secret is revealed, and he is in the crossfire of those who want to take Salwa for themselves, those who seek to commercialise from it, as well as those who want to obliterate it.
Finally, the Black Iris prize for best Arab feature was awarded to Ashkal. Directed by Youssef Chebbi, the crime thriller is set in Tunis and follows two police officers as they try to unravel the mystery behind a series of self-immolation cases.
US Jordanian contestant Farah Abu Adeela from the state of Illinois was crowned Miss Arab USA at the beauty pageant’s finale in Arizona over the weekend.
The new Miss Arab USA, who is a model, takes over from 2022’s winner, Moroccan American Marwa Lahlou.
The annual pageant, which returned in 2022 after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was held in Arizona this year. Produced by The Arab American Organization (AAO), the pageant is “founded on the basis of advancing the cause of young ladies of Arab descent,” according to its website.
The swimsuit category does not feature in the pageant, with the stated aim of organizers being to “select an honorable Arab young lady to represent our culture in the US and worldwide for one year.”
This year’s ceremony featured a performance by dance troupe Zeffa of Phoenix.
source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)
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Farah Abu Adeela nabbed the coveted tiara at the 2023 Miss Arab USA pageant. (Instagram)
Jordanian CEO and founder of Tamatem Games, Hussam Hamo, has been selected to join the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Young Global Leaders Forum.
According to a statement issued by Tamatem on Wednesday, Hamo was the only Jordanian entrepreneur selected to join the cohort.
Top publisher
Hamo founded Tamatem in 2013 to provide fun and understandable mobile games for the Arab market.
It is the number-one publisher of mobile games in the Middle East and North Africa and the top publisher of Arabic-language games, with more than 50 games published, 150 million downloads, and 7 million monthly active users. Forum program
The Forum of Young Global Leaders “connects and inspires members to lead responsibly towards a more inclusive and sustainable world through virtual and in-person programming”, according to the forum’s website.
Through a leadership development program, members are trained in insights, skills, and connections to accelerate their work in the public interest.
Trailblazing Jordanian-British research fellow reveals that her prescription for success requires dispensing – but only with tradition.
Most Damascene moments are dramatic by definition but few occur, as Atheer Awad’s did, on an actual road that leads to the Syrian capital.
Her own turning point came when the vehicle she was travelling in with her family to register for university in Amman blew a tyre, hit an electricity pole and flipped several times.
The accident meant that Awad ended up in hospital and missed the window to sign up to study medicine. By the time she was discharged, the only degree option still open to her was pharmacy.
Though bitterly disappointed at the time, she has come to believe that there were greater forces at work on the day of the crash on Jordan Street.
“Let’s just say we put our car to the test,” Awad tells The National. “It was a complete wreck. We are lucky to be alive.
“But it wasn’t meant to be that I should study medicine. I took the car accident as a sign that the future held better things for me.”
As a result, she was steered into an unexpected career in which the eventualresearch fellow at University College London would amass numerous accolades: the Journal of Clinical Medicine‘s 2021 PhD Thesis award; an appearance on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Europe; reaching the finals in the Women of the Future awards 2022 in the science category; named as an International Pharmaceutical Federation FIPWise Rising Star for 2022 as well as one of the top 15 outstanding innovators under the age of 35 by the MIT Technology Review.
Her groundbreaking research is paving the way towards the creation of personalised medication that can be 3D-printed in patients’ homes via smartphone — a potentially transformative innovation for those who find it hard to gain access to health care or don’t suit a one-size-fits-all service.
Born in Abu Dhabi and raised in Dubai by Jordanian parents, her hand was always first in the air in class when volunteers were sought to dissect animals at Al Mawakeb School in Garhoud.
It was an early display of Awad’s enthusiasm for the sciences, particularly biology, and a prelude to her ambition of becoming a heart surgeon.
“I was so determined to make a difference and medicine is one of those industries that has a greater impact when it comes to changing people’s lives,” she says.
“There is never a boring day with science because every day is a new learning experience.
“You come across things that you haven’t discovered before or create new stuff by just playing around with things in the lab and mixing them together. It’s that sort of curiosity that motivates me.”
Back then, holidays were regularly spent visiting Jordan — trips that Awad still makes annually to catch up with extended family, go to weddings and indulge a soft spot for the local food.
“I love those traditional connections,” she says, “and still follow as many of these practices as I can, wherever I am.
“My faith helps a lot. But it isn’t easy trying to keep a balance between sticking to faith and being able to live in a foreign country.”
Moving to England wasn’t as daunting as it might have been without the unwavering support of her parents and four older siblings — a pharmacist, a consultant with whom she lived until recently, an IT specialist and a doctor.
“It is rare for all of us to be in the same country at the same time,” she says, laughing. “We travel between the three countries and there is always at least one of us living in each of the three. That makes it interesting for my parents, who get to travel everywhere.”
Awad herself, now 29, is a keen traveller and has put on her bucket list the wish to visit every country in Europe before turning her sights to other continents.
She fell in love with Turkey after a trip to Cappadocia, the semi-arid central region known for its “fairy chimney” rock formations, and particularly enjoys explorations on foot.
London, however, holds a special place in her heart, where there is, she points out, a big Jordanian community.
“I have a lot of friends I consider my second family. They’re a mixture of scientists, people outside work, and others with Jordanian or Arab heritage. That keeps me connected to my roots and it is one of the beauties of London — it’s international.”
But she calls Dubai home and makes many happy returns to Living Legends, a newly developed 14 million-square-foot community on the outskirts of the city where her parents still live.
Part of the appeal of the emirate, it should be said, is the chance to hit the luxury shops. Dior and Prada are favourites — her handbag collection alone extends to “about 40 or 50 … I’ve lost count” — and the Swarovski-encrusted mobile phone she takes everywhere is a particularly prized purchase.
Invariably, though, one of the first stops is to fill up on luqaimat, known as awama in the Levant. She has sampled the sugary doughnuts wherever she finds them but maintains that the ones whipped up for as long as Awad can remember by her mum, Hanan Swais, “are the best”.
They were an abiding taste of a childhood in which the extroverted Awad, left to explore her own interests by her father, Jamal, an electronics retailer, and Hanan, a homemaker, played the piano exuberantly if not with any notable proficiency and went on Scouting expeditions.
There was never an expectation that she would follow in the footsteps of any of her siblings but the desire to pursue medicine was strong nonetheless.
“It wasn’t until we were discharged from hospital [after the car accident] that I realised I had missed the deadline,” she says. “There was no going back in time. I just thought: ‘What’s the next best option?’
“That’s why I always say I did not choose pharmacy — it chose me.”
Despite a reluctant start, Awad’s enthusiasm grew throughout a five-year degree at the private Applied Science University in Amman as she gained insight into the extent of what pharmacists could actually do.
“I started looking at pharmacy as having a bigger impact than I had previously thought,” she says.
“People sometimes look at pharmacists as if they are beneath or less important than doctors when, in fact, they do most of the work behind the scenes.”
Little by little, with the consolidation of hours of satisfying sessions spent researching in laboratories or learning about the differences in the properties of various drugs, it dawned on Awad that she had stumbled across her calling.
Which is not to say that she appreciated being treated as little more than a saleswoman while doing work experience in a community pharmacy during the degree course.
“People assume that the pharmacist just takes the prescription and gets the medication without doing anything else,” she says. “There is a misconception.”
The experience hardened Awad’s resolve to focus on research rather than the direct, community-facing side of the profession.
After graduation in 2015, she embarked on a master’s in pharmaceutics and drug design at UCL, where she learnt about 3D printing during an end-of-year project with her professor, Abdul Basit.
She was inspired to keep working with the Basit Research Group within the School of Pharmacy to undertake a doctorate specialising in using the drug-delivery technology in the manufacture of medicines.
“I’ve always been interested in technology so it grabbed my interest immediately,” says Awad, who is still a research fellow with the group.
Weekends when she is not working are spent dining with friends, indulging her obsession for Harry Potter — “I’ve watched all the films multiple times” — and baking. Coffee cake is her speciality and made a well-received appearance at her professor’s 50th birthday.
“I do like experimenting with baking and cooking. I think there are similarities between baking and science.”
She doesn’t rule out applying to appear on The Great British Bake Off television show but, for now, Awad’s ambitions are confined to the lab.
“I want to make a change,” she says. “I don’t want 3D printing to stay a theory. I want to see it being implemented and taken up by healthcare agencies.”
Most recently, Awad has been printing tablets with Braille and moon patterns on their surfaces for visually impaired patients, or changing their shape, size and colour so that children or those with limited capacity find them easier to take. She has also been researching how to combine several medications into a single pill.
One of her team’s successes has been in creating tablets that can be swallowed without water. Manufactured in partnership with pharmaceutical 3D-printing specialist FabRx by melting powder particles with a laser beam and using heat, the porous product dissolves on the tongue.
She talks about how 3D printing allows alterations of a fraction of a milligram, making medication much more tailored and precise than the standard variety available off the shelf.
“Every person is different and our bodies do not react the same,” Awad says. “The requirements when it comes to medication differ, and sometimes they differ within the same person, depending on the disease progression.
“We can also take patients’ preferences into consideration. That’s important when it comes to children or elderly patients. Often children refuse to take medicine because they don’t like the taste, the shape isn’t appealing or the pill might be too big.”
While 3D printing for customised pharmaceuticals has yet to be introduced commercially in the UK, Awad’s UCL team has managed to convert a smartphone into an on-demand 3D drug printer with an app that could be used in remote GP surgeries and even at home.
“We’re not far from the industry adopting 3D printing, probably in the next two to five years,” she says. “Approval will have to be on a medication-by-medication basis because each medicine could behave differently to the same technology, depending on its properties, and the 3D-printing technologies themselves differ.”
Awad’s passion for her work is tangible. The British-American analytics company Clarivate clearly thought so when last month listing her on its influential Highly Cited 2022. It was a remarkable achievement for such a young scientist to appear among fewer than 0.1 per cent of the world’s researchers across 21 fields.
Such recognition is welcome but, she says, the many “titles are more of an assurance that I am on the right track and that my work is important”.
“That’s the driving force to keep me moving forward and become even more ambitious to try new things,” she says.
One of her guiding principles is that researchers should be brave and adopt different approaches because even the most “ridiculous” ideas can be turned into brilliant inventions or innovations.
As she has been known to opine, not all scientific breakthroughs happen through planned research: “Sometimes, you come across things by accident.”
Given the route into her career in pharmaceuticals, it could be said that Awad started very much as she meant to continue.
In a remote area in the Valley of Jordan, schoolgirls planned for their future debunking the stereotypical roles that society prescribed for women.
In a remote area in the Valley of Jordan, schoolgirls planned for their future debunking the stereotypical roles that society prescribed for women. Some of the girls dreamt of being “spokesperson” of the government. It was the first time Jordan had a government’s spokesperson. And she was a woman: Asma Khader.
The many times in which Khader have inspired women and girls are the moments she recalls with a warm smile. “Girls start to see that their role is not being wives only. They can be ministers and official spokespersons and get involved in politics,” says Khader. In 2003, she was the State’s Minister and the government’s spokesperson. “I was on the TV and the radio everyday talking to the public,” says Khader. She remembers holding press conferences every Monday’s morning in a public space where anyone could attend.
In a region where women could be trapped in the midst of stereotypes, cultural ones and those implied by outsiders, political and social empowerment are necessities when dealing with women’s rights advocacy. It’s a continuous battle in which women celebrate victories and overcome challenges and obstacles. With her dark short hair and formal attire, Khader is one of the warriors in this battle. A mother of three daughters and one son and a grandmother, she raised her kids on principal: gender equality. “The only son was not getting the privilege to enjoy being the only boy,” laughs Khader.
In the midst of busy Amman, Khader is in her office working tirelessly. She had to stop practicing law because of her current position as Commissioner and Vice President at the Independent Election Commission. She helped to launch, established and led several organizations promoting human rights and freedom of expression. I have visited and witnessed the works of two of them: Al-Mizan Legal Group and Sisterhood Is Global Institute Jordan. Both of the groups are nationally active and have a great impact on people’s lives. I have met several active members of SIGI in the different chapters in cities and towns all working together on women’s rights issues.
Born in 1952, Khader has been a pioneer of women and girls’ rights advocacy since her childhood. She was the eldest of her siblings. In most Arab communities, it’s a tradition to identify parents by the name of their eldest child. For several years, Khader’s parents were known to be “Abu Asma” and “Umm Asma,” Asma’s father and Asma’s mother, until a change happened.
“I was shocked when everybody started to call my parents Abu Sameer and Umm Sameer after my brother was born,” says Khader and she chuckles. “They were known as Abu Asma and Umm Asma because I was the first child and then my sister and my sister. After three children, the boy was born. And in one second everybody started calling them Abu Sameer and Umm Sameer.” It was a matter of a name, but had deep meaning of discrimination against girls.
The spark of activism was ignited focusing on gender roles in childhood. “I started to prefer going out and playing with children: with boys mainly,” says Khader. Soon, her father noticed her rebellious spirit. He was supportive and backed her activism. Khader mentions that when he noticed her passion in defending girls’ rights at a young age he told her: “You should be sure that I love you and I am proud of you. And I am sure you will be a good citizen, a good person in the society.”
“My father was a very open minded person, very educated, a believer in women and men, and a fighter against discrimination,” reiterating the importance of her father’s support in her life. “My mother was worried but she didn’t prevent me from being active. As a mother I can understand why she was worried all the time.”
Khader’s journey began. At a time when it was rare for women to be involved in politics, Khader took to the streets with her male colleagues protesting against Israeli’s airstrikes on a small village in Khalil near Hebron. She was only 13-years-old chanting while being carried on the shoulders of other protestors. She encouraged her colleagues from the girls’ school to join the demonstration.
That was her early engagement in public life. However, she was active in school, helping and defending other students. “And I think that was the root of my profession later, to be a lawyer,” mentions Khader.
While being in high school, Khader was also active in helping Palestinian refugees. Arts fill Khader’s office, accompanied by her memories. As a member of the Palestinian Women Union, in the late 1960s, Khader travelled to other countries to present Palestine in Folklore activities such as arts and traditional Dabkeh dance, and exhibiting handmade crafts made by women, especially those of the refugee camps.
Surrounded by crowds of people, mainly women, Khader announced: “We are not presenting women as victims.” Khader is one of the three judges of Manara Award for Gender Equality in Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. She is representing her home country, Jordan.
As she entered the room, women and few men gathered around to greet her and I was one of them. A woman journalist sitting beside me was pleased to see Khader on a seat close to us. “Your excellency, this is my article,” said the journalist while flipping the pages of a magazine to show her the piece.
Despite being occupied with the event, Khader got engaged in a conversation with the journalist. During the event Khader listened to comments and questions, and answered in a professional manner. Being in a non-governmental event and listening to Khader took my imagination to a time when I was not in Jordan: when she was a government’s official having to answer the public.
The challenge that most activists go throw is making their voice heard through the official channels. Having an official who was an activist could change the equation. It meant having reforms and changes within. Lobbying is something that women’s rights groups in several countries spend a lot of time and energy on. Similarly, in Jordan, a constitutional monarchy, in which non-governmental organizations, opposition and other groups have a chance to demand changes through the existing channels. At times, it is necessary to work with the government in order to achieve rights, gender equality in particular.
Being in a leading position, Khader used her role as a government official and minister to work for gender equality. “When you are in a position where you can impact a decision, it’s very important,” says Khader speaking of her experience in the government. For instance, she was able to push to have shelters, by law, in order to protect vulnerable women. In addition to that, health insurance law was introduced that entitles working women to have the right in including their families in their health insurance plans. Khader also had a stance against death penalty that was frozen until 2014. She was also able to give licenses to independent media organizations, and thus enhancing freedom of expression condition in the country.
“It’s very important to see how problems and achievements and challenges are from the different points of view,” says Khader. “I realize that if there is good lobbying — a group who are really preparing their case well — then the ministries will discuss it and take it seriously. This was also an empowering experience: to be more active in civil society later and to know how to deal with issues and to be more effective.”
Khader graduated from Damascus University with a law degree in the early 1970s. At that time, there was no faculty of law in Jordan, and therefore, Khader had to travel to Syria. When she returned after successfully graduating, her father died. “It was a sudden death before me being a lawyer,” says Khader and her eyes are tearful. I look around to find a framed letter on her desk. “He wrote this letter to me.”
“I have always pictured you a lawyer…defending the oppressed, and serving the motherland with awareness…I wish you success and prosperity,” Khader’s father wrote. While the father didn’t see his daughter a lawyer, he was certain that she would be and that she would defend human rights. He was right with what he pictured for her.
A life filled with activism and Khader talks with pride about every battle she fought. Taking serious risks is not a choice, but is a necessity in some campaigns such as the one against what’s known as honour crimes. For instance, Khader mentions incidents in which she was threatened that her daughters would be “raped.” Her daughters were safe and she wasn’t deterred from continuing in her work despite the threats.
“Everybody now is fighting honour crimes in the country and the laws were changed and the special court was established and efforts happened,” says Khader. This would not have happened if women’s rights activists and advocates, like Khader, stopped due to threats and obstacles facing them. “Everybody now from the leadership of the country to many officials of the country to even the public opinion [have a stance against honour crimes],” says Khader. “After 20, 30 years, they are changed. So sometimes, it is a long process.”
Based on decades of experience, Khader has advice: to not lose hope if the process is taking a long time. “Reaching leading positions is not easy and is not going to happen smoothly without hard work and seriousness and knowledge based approach to challenge all the obstacles and being ready to spend years after some of the demands, some of the rights and some of the dreams, and some of the achievements you are trying to reach,” insists Khader.
Yusur is a journalist currently working in Jordan. She is board member of Canadian Voice of Women for Peace. This Project was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada.
Scout’s honour: lucky break bounced Ahmad Alhendawi into the line of dut.y
Jordanian who substituted basketball for public service now proudly puts the global scout movement’s 54 million young people first as leader of the packs.
Ahmad Alhendawi found his mission in life on the basketball court. Just not in the way he expected.
As a teenager on the brink of university, the Jordanian had set his heart on a sports scholarship. It all depended on one 90-minute trial but, fortunately, young Alhendawi was good.
Even though he was up against more than 30 contenders for one of just two coveted places, he had little doubt in his ability to prevail.
The decisive moment came as he ran back into a defensive position during a one-on-one exercise with a rival when his knee twisted beneath him.
The tears that followed were for the agony and his thwarted ambition. “I can’t remember much because the pain was just unbearable,” Mr Alhendawi tells The National.
The diagnosis was a cruciate ligament injury – and that was that as far as the basketball scholarship was concerned.
“It was literally the only time I needed basketball in my life, just to get to the school that I really wanted,” he says.
“Most of my friends were there and I already had a kind of picture of how things would play out if I went. So it was game over.”
He had little choice but to revert to plan B, one which he now believes should “always have been my plan A”, to focus on his other passion – volunteering.
The switch to public service has not worked out too badly for the man who, at the age of 32, was named as the youngest head of the world’s scouting movement.
“Volunteering is quite a remarkable thing,” he says. “It’s a magical thing. You actually think you’re giving your time and energy but all the time you are getting much more than you are giving.
“Only with time do you realise how much you have accumulated experiences and insights on things that you would never have explored if it wasn’t for volunteering.”
It is tempting to call it a meteoric rise but Mr Alhendawi’s selection as secretary general of the World Organisation of the Scout Movement followed a pattern of volunteering and championing youth causes that was set early in childhood.
The young Ahmad grew up in Zarqa, Jordan’s second largest city and a magnet for migrants from across the Middle East seeking a better life.
Attending a public school with class sizes of 45 to 50, he mixed with Iraqis, Syrians and Christian Arabs whose families had all made their way to the country’s industrial centre beside the Zarqa River.
As the youngest of 10 children from a military family, he was well versed in making himself heard.
His intellectual curiosity was fed by learning from the conversations of his older siblings and visits to the local public library. He remembers, too, aged six, being captivated by his father’s habit of reading the newspaper every day.
“It was always a surprise to me why there were so many stories in there but we were not in the paper,” Mr Alhendawi says.
“My father explained the whole thing that you have to do something to be in the paper. In a very childish way – but in a profound way when I reflect on it – I felt like I would like to be part of those sorts of things.”
Thinking that the opportunities afforded him through the formal education system would not only be conventional but limited by social class and financial background, he fixed upon the idea of expanding the realm of possibilities via extra-curricular activities.
These days, Mr Alhendawi describes it as “hustling through volunteering”. “It was my ticket to try to make it, and it worked rather well and allowed me to do a lot of things,” he says.
As a teenage scout, he was asked to help as an usher for an event where the charismatic King Hussein of Jordan gave a speech. “It was the only time I saw my father cry, when the king passed away,” Mr Alhendawi says.
He learnt the value of public service from a teacher, who in his spare time ran the school’s scout troop, and his inspirational basketball coach. His own volunteering efforts ran in parallel with his sporting passions until that devastating torn ligament.
The result of the injury was that, instead of staying in his home city and attending the Hashemite University, he went to his second-choice, Al Balqa, in Salt, 50 kilometres away.
Being separated from his family taught him independence, but the course on computer information systems failed to satisfy his growing intellectual curiosity.
Before starting classes, he travelled every week to another university to attend lectures on political economy and psychology. “My friends were laughing at me because they knew that I didn’t have passion for what I was studying,” he says.
His dedication fed into his volunteering work. Mr Alhendawi spent extra hours reading lecture notes and preparing documents while working on school councils and youth commissions.
He was delivering a presentation at a conference when he was spotted and offered a job with the Arab League to work on youth projects and develop civil society.
Mr Alhendawi has consistently maintained that young people are unexploited assets in solving the world’s problems. It is a lesson that global leaders need to learn quickly, he says, with half of the population under the age of 25 but suffering some of its most acute problems.
The dissertation for his master’s degree, achieved at the European Institute in Nice, France, looked into the workings of the Arab uprisings in Egypt. He argues that the perception of apathetic Egyptian youth was not borne out by the mass mobilisation in 2011.
He has spoken of changing the rules of political engagement so that those in the younger generation are treated as more than mere beneficiaries of charity from an older establishment. Despite too often being sidelined in this process, Mr Alhendawi says that young people cannot afford to ignore politics.
His own advancement came when he was tapped by the UN’s secretary general, Ban Ki -moon, in January 2013 to become the organisation’s first youth envoy.
Four years later, he himself was named as a secretary general, representing the diverse views of more than 170 nations in the scouting movement.
No one was more delighted than Mr Ban, who dug out a photograph of his younger self as a scout when Mr Alhendawi came to his office to break the news.
Mr Ban told his departing envoy that his appointment was a good one for the UN. While he might be losing an energetic advocate for youth, he felt that the vast scout network under Mr Alhendawi would advocate for similar goals as those of the UN.
In a sign of how the co-operation would work, the UN, with the scouting movement and the five other large global youth organisations, launched an initiative called Global Youth Mobilisation to provide an initial $2 million for young people and communities affected by Covid-19. Young people will decide where the money goes and how it is spent.
Mr Alhendawi’s mission statement in leading the scouting movement is to embrace the “mega trends that are really threatening the future of this generation, like climate change and inequality ”.
In his own scouting days, he visited parts of Jordan as a child and was immersed in different cultures that he probably would not have experienced otherwise.
“Scouting tends to be inward looking sometimes … a movement that has more than 50 million members and more than 500 million alumni cannot act as a small club in a village,” he says.
His programme of modernisation extends to updating the image of the organisation, which in some countries has lost its appeal to youngsters to the competing attractions of computer games and sports.
Mr Alhendawi has praised the process of revitalisation in the UK, where perceptions were overhauled when the adventurer and explorer Bear Grylls was named as chief scout.
His social media feeds feature many campaigning messages, whether environmental, educational, achieving gender equality, ensuring a fair global distribution of vaccines or promoting peace in South Sudan.
It is a politics founded on consensus building from his history of working for membership organisations – such as the UN and the Arab League – in which progress can be made only by bringing people together in search of a common goal.
He recalls one lunch with a diplomat at which they discussed the differences between working for a country or an organisation like the United Nations. “The way we ended the conversation was that if you were a representative of a member state you could probably promote development for the sake of politics,” he says.
“But if you worked on the UN side, you have for the most time to do the politics for the sake of maintaining development gains.”
Despite his global ambitions for change, some of Mr Alhendawi’s challenges are closer to home. Sexual abuse scandals resulted in the Boy Scouts of America, for example, filing for bankruptcy to allow it to pay compensation in hundreds of reported cases.
One of his first acts as secretary general was to build ethical standards across all the national scouting organisations. In the coming years, any that do not conform to child protection measures “will have no place in the movement”.
In his darker moments, he turns to the words of Nelson Mandela, whose letters and poems are on the wall of Mr Alhendawi’s home in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia where the world scouting movement has its headquarters.
“Just two weeks ago, I was confronted with a situation where I thought, maybe I should be angry … and gave myself two hours, read a few of the letters and it just calmed me down and helped me find the right tone,” he says.
At 37, Mr Alhendawi has reached the stage in his life when he is running out of time for “the youngest …” to be attached as a prefix to each new appointment. He was due to marry his partner, who is from Finland, last year but the coronavirus has delayed the nuptials until this summer.
The pandemic has hit young people hardest, Mr Alhendawi says. He wrote on Twitter last year that the effect of Covid-19 on youth was not just severe, it was catastrophic.
“It has resulted in a generation in waiting,” he said. He points to his own native Jordan, where youth unemployment stands at 50 per cent.
Despite the gloom, lockdown living has had some advantages. In this online interview, Mr Alhendawi occasionally tugs at his black polo shirt, sticky from the effort of throwing a few hoops on the basketball court outside.
After two decades of exercises to relieve the discomfort caused by the old sporting injury, he has at last had surgery. As he puts it, “I’ve finally fixed something that’s been broken for 20 years”.
