All You Need is Love to make a difference
I once worked for an incredibly inspiring individual… I will go as far and say that most of my good professional and ethical qualities in me exists today because of the motivation and guidance he gave me during the few years I had the privilege to work for the regions most creative thinker, Stuart Cameron.
Coming from working in one of the top 3 PR companies in the world, I was spoilt and very narrow in my thinking. With this company, octOpus, I was forced to run the entire PR department on my own – from client relations, writing stories, media relations, analysis reports, radio deals etc and I was flustered.
But seeing that I could work hard, my ex boss, Stuart Cameron pushed boundaries and made me realise that I couldn’t just write and issue press releases and that I was capable of doing so much more – we handled some of the best PR clients competing with agencies that had 30 odd people and we still delivered more than they ever could according to some very delightful clients.
Stuart also introduced me to CSR and told me that while it was ok to make money, it was far better to encourage clients to become socially responsible and that if one day he will become a millionaire, he will run an orphanage or help children get education and develop positively.
He stayed true to his word. Today, I am proud to say that apart from going on to become a millionaire (He is a marketing and advertising genius so how could he not), he has put his time and effort into helping provide education to Burmese migrant children in Mae Sot.
Mae Sot is a border town on Tak Province in Thailand, which is the major land gateway between Thailand and Burma. There are more than 30,000 stateless Burmese children in Mae Sot. This is only 10% of the 300,000 estimated children living on the entire border area. These stateless children are recognized by neither Thailand nor Burma and thus have no access to state services or schooling. They rely on financial help from non-government organisations to get a decent school and education. As a mum who struggles with the rocket high cost of school fees in Dubai, I refuse to make compromises on my child’s education at any cost so I can imagine how difficult and unfortunate it is for these children who don’t get any education because they don’t have the means for simple school education.
“Every bit helps.” This is why big Stuart (as he is fondly called since we were surrounded by Stuarts in the office) has gone out of his way to support one of the schools on the border called “Good Morning School.” For more than three years now, Stuart has been actively involved in promoting sustainable education for migrant children.
He has visited Mae Sot more than twenty-five times and with his team in tow, they have achieved a lot of remarkable projects on ground. Applying Stuart’s management acumen, he assisted in the restructuring of the grassroots organisation that manages the network of migrant schools on the border called BMWEC (http://bmwecmaesot.org), by putting in a reliable accounting system and a process that ensures checks and balances.
In a town, where resources are scarce, sustainability is key. Stuart has made it his mission to achieve this at Good Morning School. With the help of the local community, the school has now evolved from a small bamboo hut into a proper concrete building with 10 classrooms. It also boasts of a pigpen, a fishpond, a crop garden and a deep well. All these are learning tools for the children and income-generating projects that lower the running costs of the school. Stuart’s only hope is that this model of sustainability will be replicated and applied to the rest of the migrant schools on the border. Stuart did not stop there.
He went ahead and set up a charitable organisation aptly called ‘All you need is Love’ (AYNIL). AYNIL, unlike other charities, has a “dollar for a dollar” policy. This means that no administration cost gets deducted from each dollar you donate as it goes directly to a specific purpose, which you can choose as a donor. AYNIL is now a recognized as separate charitable organisations in both the UK and the US, widening its reach and ability to put up fund-raising activities to support the children. Everyone can help in their own way via http://allyouneedislove.org.uk/ or http://www.allyouneedislovecharity.com/.
Both are information portals that deliver a channel through which individuals can donate their time and/or money or, support the delivery of an evolving educational program for Burmese migrant children. If you are more of a hands-on person, you may help support the community by spending time in Mae Sot. AYNIL aims to match volunteers with real skills to real needs in community-based organisation AYNIL is partnerships with.
You can never do enough good…so on top of all these, Stuart went ahead to direct and produce a documentary called “All You Need is Love” too. It aims to provide funding to the charity for the years to come as half of the profits will go directly to the charity. All You Need is Love will feature the children of Mae Sot. It will not only highlight their plight but more importantly their resilience amidst the political conflict and civil unrest on the border. If you watch the trailer through this link: http://youtu.be/LOQu7z3fwPk, you will surely feel the power of the positive and of the human spirit.
As a mother I feel for these children in Mae Sot and I am sure there are many people out there who do as well. If you want to know more, check the documentary site on http://www.allyouneedislovedoc.com. You may also visit their Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/aynildocumentary or follow them on Twitter @allyouneeddoc for updates.
One day, when NJD is out of school and on her own, I hope to make time and get resources to make a difference to these children together with her as well.
If you are interested in helping through All You need is Love, get in touch with me and I will arrange for you to meet up with Stuart and his team.
All You Need is Love to make a difference
‘Joy of collecting’ is new theme for Bahrain Science Centre
Its always fun to do things for Bahrain Science Centre because each month we have a new activity to work on. The themed activity during February 2014 at Bahrain Science Centre, part of Ministry of Social Development is ‘Joy of Collecting ‘. The goal of this theme is to encourage children to make collections of interesting objects.
Collecting is an educational activity as it encourages children to acquire and learn about objects from different cultures, ages and countries. Although ‘collecting’ is not strictly a scientific activity, it is an educational activity that promotes curiosity, inquisitiveness and innovation.
During the month, children will be encouraged to collect items that are simple, interesting, not too common or expensive, that are not alive, and are found all over the world and samples of personal collections will be displayed in different galleries at the centre .
Interested visitors can download the weekly programme on the website www.bahrainsciencecentre.com for more information. The Bahrain Science Centre is located in Building 334, Road 109, Block 801, Riyadh Avenue, Isa Town, Kingdom of Bahrain and can be contacted on 17686466
New Faces of Arabia.com
Wadih Al Najjar, Shereen Mitwali and Mostafa Kamel at the roundtable I attended.
There are very few people I give my time to in Dubai so when I heard two of the friendliest faces in Dubai (Wadih and Shereen) last week got selected as the faces of Arabia.com, I was delighted for them and went for the roundtable that announced their appointment. I have known Wadih Al Najjar for over eight years and Shereen Mitwali for about two years and both their positive energies always rubs off on me each time I meet with them. They are certainly the perfect choice to be in the forefront for Arabia.com.
Both Shereen and Wadih were presented officially by Mostafa Kamel, Managing Director of LINKonLINE. Below are snippets of his speech from the event:
I would like to welcome you all to the Arabia.com Press Conference to share with you our latest activities and achievements, particularly since we revamped our pages and restructured our website, as well as imminent plans in early 2014.
Arabia went through major changes throughout 2013, as I’m sure you’ve all noticed. We rebranded, redesigned our site, and refocused our attentions.
As part of always offering the latest and the best, Arabia.com reinvented itself to give you more of the things you’ve always loved about it in a better package. With the re-launch of Arabia.com as a touch friendly, highly socially integrated page, there’s more to the whole experience and the new look and feel comes with a host of additional features we’re sure our visitors will love.
Since the revamp, our numbers have shot up: from an average of 5 million page views a month in the first quarter of 2013 to an average of over 12 million in the second quarter, increasing substantially every month. With almost 1 million unique visitors monthly, increasing at an average of almost 20% a month, and with a bounce rate of lower than -5%, we’re on the right track, socially and regionally.
We were the first in the region to launch a new gamification-based loyalty program, where users can win gifts by simply being on our website. This gave our users more incentive to engage with our content, participate in competitions, and spend time on the website, also building stronger relationships with them, with continuous connectivity between us.
We also came up with a brand new initiative you will not find on any other website in the region, for our users to see what is happening around us. Galleries and photographs are a huge slice of what Internet users browse in their free time. For the longest time, our main gallery images were collated and compiled by us, but we found that we could give our users a system that was more real-time, more personal, and more diverse. So we came up with something completely different: we decided to let the people you wanted to see tell you what they’re doing instead.
We created a system that wraps around your favourite people’s Instagram accounts, with hashtag search abilities, as well as user accounts. This brings the greatest bits of leisurely entertainment right to every page of Arabia.com, since we have made Arabia Now accessible holistically, and therefore you’re always in touch with what’s happening, with real-time updates, comprehensive diversity, and a very personal insight into what’s happening and where.
We didn’t just bring the celebrities’ Instagrams to our pages, we brought some of the celebrities too: we asked highly renowned icon Shereen Mitwali and celebrity photographer and socialite Wadih El Najjar to join us and give us their take on the world through our Faces of Arabia section. Both Shereen and Wadih have a remarkable track record of being closely in tune with the heartbeat of Arab society, so they will not only be the faces but the voices and minds of Arabia.
They will bring the very best of the Arab world to the rest of the globe, while helping our regional audience to discover fascinating gems of our ever-evolving lifestyles. As a highly proactive and responsive portal, the contributors will regularly respond to readers’ feedback while creating eye-opening and mind-opening articles that inspire the Arab world to see itself with new eyes. They’re more than just a face, to us: they’re part of our family and we came together with them to help improve the work we do in terms of our content.
Basically, we’ve redesigned based on what we know matters to our users.
This personal engagement has clearly been the right thing to do. Our Facebook fans attest to it. Over a short period of time, we’ve built a large online following of users in the region, reaching close to 600,000 fans, we’ve created a talking and meeting point out of our blue and white page.
With 450,000 likes from the GCC alone ranking it as one of the pages with the largest concentration of regional users, Arabia.com is a fast growing presence on Facebook. These users share and interact with our content, giving it a reach of almost 4 million users in the GCC countries. Arabia.com’s Facebook page is ranked in the top ten in the region. This degree of social interaction is unprecedented in our region, and we work hard to maintain the relationships we build with our readers: we pay attention to what they say, and we act on it.
From over 100 million Google searches per day in the region, 54% of them are in Arabic, so there clearly is a huge market out there that is looking for content in their native language. It is our job to provide them with this material and ensure that we design for an Arabic readership, not with the Arabic readership as an afterthought.
From the gamification systems that we’ve put into place to the various touch points and the refreshed design, and especially our social integration, we plan on branching out to give our visitors access to everything they need and truly become their news and information portal online.
We’ll be doing even more in 2014: developing our Sports channel, especially with the upcoming World Cup; growing our Women channel, giving entertainment, fashion, beauty, and lifestyle more depth and richness than ever before; remaking our Automotive channel, from the ground up, not just cosmetically; building on our Travel channel, to add more usability, flexibility, and deals to it all.
Last year was big. This year is even bigger….
We certainly know that Wadih and Shereen will add loads of additional value to an already successful Arabia.com.
Kid’s Knowledge Event celebrated at the Bahrain Science Centre
The Bahrain Science Centre, part of the Ministry of Social Development, will host several exciting events organized together with the British Council as part of their ‘Kid’s Knowledge Event’ on 23 and 24 January 2014
A real Red London Bus converted into a children’s library will be parked behind the Science Centre and will host reading and literacy events. A large tent next to the Big Red Bus will host a variety of interactive educational activities including giant puzzles and floor games.
Inside the Bahrain Science Centre visitors will be able to participate in a Treasure Hunt throughout the exhibition galleries and laboratories of the Science Centre and special interactive storytelling session on the ‘History of Flight’ will be presented in the Auditorium, and guided tours will be offered to all the galleries.
Interested visitors can download the weekly programme on the website www.bahrainsciencecentre.com for more information. The Bahrain Science Centre is located in Building 334, Road 109, Block 801, Riyadh Avenue, Isa Town, Kingdom of Bahrain and can be contacted on 17686466 for booking
Peppermill opens at Eastern Mangroves, Abu Dhabi
Peppermill Restaurant, a colonial Indian dining concept that contemporizes the traditional cuisines of different parts of India for global broad audience appeal is opening its third restaurant at the Eastern Mangroves, Abu Dhabi.
The menu features a feast of the sub continent’s favourite dishes prepared by using fresh ingredients and traditional spices and served in a warm distinctive ambience within a rich, opulent and elegant setting that is ideal for intimate and private gatherings as patrons enjoy light background music.
Ms. Shafeena YusuffAli, the dynamic entrepreneur who is the CEO of Tablez Food Company, said, “Although the Peppermill menu has a myriad of influences, it is firmly and proudly rooted in Indian heritage and its cooking methods. We have successfully achieved our culinary vision by marrying the rich indigenous traditions of the past with the flavours of the present which will be evident to our patrons at the Eastern Mangroves restaurant.”
Peppermill’s quintessentially authentic meals are a delight for the eyes, nose and the palate and can also be enjoyed in private dining rooms. The Peppermill at Eastern Mangroves can accommodate up to 100 patrons at a time.
DIMENTION – Artworks by Ndue Pepa opens in Abu Dhabi
Couple of days ago I was able to meet and chat with well-known Albanian artist, Ndue Pepa during his 3 days visit to UAE. Pepa is represented in the UAE by Artissima Gallery and is showcasing his art collection ‘Dimension’ at the Dusit Thani Abu Dhabi until the 20th of February, 2014.
Born in Albania, Ndue Pepa’s art techniques are based on Albanian traditions that he has modernized with his unique artistic style. After exhibiting in Albania and Italy, art enthusiasts in the UAE will get a chance to view his work in Abu Dhabi.
Ndue Pepa practices the philosophy of stylistic deformity through his eye retina photographs, which resembles the circle rotation spiral in a new stage and in a round cycle more advanced in time.
The paintings of artist Ndue Pepa is appreciated in many countries and have become part of art collections by followers of his style of work. The strength of Ndue Pepa lies in the use of rich vibrant colours that are expressive and composed fluidly in dynamic geometric movements that are energetic and celebrates both the creativity of the past and present.
Science for a better life
Couple of days ago I was super lucky to see the award-winning exhibition ‘Bayer: Science For A Better Life’ in Dubai, as part of a world tour celebrating Bayer, the world-class innovation company’s 150th anniversary, offering a hands-on interactive exhibition.
Held at The Dubai Mall’s Star Atrium, ‘Bayer: Science For A Better Life’ provides visitors with a chance to discover, interact, and engage with the latest innovations in healthcare, agriculture, and high-performance materials that help improve the quality of life of people, animals, and plants worldwide.
The exhibition is educative and entertaining, and features microscopes, thermal imaging cameras, digital games, and more, all specifically designed to be touched and tried out encouraging visitors to learn and have fun.
The exhibition had 22 approximately two-meter high boxes with capital letters, each of which refers to a Bayer topic, from A for Aspirin to E for Energy-efficient Mobility and R for Rice. Each box contains images and informational text on the scientific background and social aspects of the topic. Numerous interactive elements are available for visitors to test. Together, the boxes spell out Bayer’s mission: ‘Science For A Better Life’.
Oros sure does smell nice
Little diva and I are currently trying out a new fragrance from Oros, the high-end French fragrance brand. Oros, which means ‘Gold’ in Spanish, have used natural oils for a long-lasting scent and hand-decorated bottles with Swarovski elements – I have tried it for 2 weeks now and am loving it.
Oros pour femme for women is encased in handcrafted bottles with a dozen crystals that connote persona and sophistication for each month throughout the year, while the Swarovski stud on the cap imparts opulence as it’s the crowning glory.
Oros Pour Femme, is presented in a sleek graceful clear glass bottle. The scent is described as elegant, provocative and free-spirited, full of passion and emotion.
The scent combines floral elements with the glamorous sensuality of an Oros woman. It opens to sparkling notes of bergamot, pear and lily and reveals a sensuous floral combination of ylang-ylang, absolute tuberose and absolute jasmine. The dry-down of the scent combines white musk, patchouli and amber….it’s real nice!
Globalista Extraordinaire 