Mentoring young girls to be world leaders

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Mentoring young girls to be world leaders
Commemorating Emirati Women's Day, the theme of this year's edition was announced as 'Women are Partners in Giving'.

Dubai - Emirates NBD E7 Daughters of the Emirates, a nation-wide programme by Promise of a Generation that brings together, trains and mentors young women to become future leaders, welcomed the new incoming class of 2018 at the UAE Vision Dialogue.

By Saman Haziq

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Published: Thu 7 Sep 2017, 9:29 PM

Last updated: Thu 7 Sep 2017, 11:36 PM

Fulfilling the UAE leaders' vision to encourage women to contribute to society, Thursday saw the third edition of Emirates NBD e7 Banat Al Emarat - Daughters of the Emirates - summit kick off with a massive dose of inspiration through a panel discussion on women empowerment.
Emirates NBD E7 Daughters of the Emirates, a nation-wide programme by Promise of a Generation that brings together, trains and mentors young women to become future leaders, welcomed the new incoming class of 2018 at the UAE Vision Dialogue, marking the beginning of the Emirates NBD E7 Summit which is being held from September 6-9 this year.
Commemorating Emirati Women's Day, the theme of this year's edition was announced as 'Women are Partners in Giving' and aims to encourage 35 women aged 18-25 years to develop sustainable community benefit projects aligned to the core pillars of the Year of Giving: Promoting corporate social responsibility, volunteering and serving the nation. To help their vision to fruition, the project teams will be provided with seed funding from the programme's title sponsor Emirates NBD and ongoing mentorship from the Promise of a Generation volunteers.
The event saw inspiring women of the UAE, including Lubna Qassim, senior executive vice-president and group chief general counsel, Emirates NBD, and Amal Murad, UAE's first Emirati Parkour athlete, and coach.
It was a "burning desire and ambition" that drove Lubna to make a mark and carve a niche for her in a male-dominated territory, a career in law. 
"I always knew I wanted to help humanity and after some soul-searching and with wisdom that came as I grew older, I felt I could serve humanity by pursuing a career in law. The cornerstone of law is justice, equality and making an impact," Lubna Qassim said.
Lubna was one of the first few Emirati female teenagers who went to study law abroad in the 90s.
Asked about how she maintains work-life balance, Lubna seemed quite sorted. She said: "There is never a perfect balance but you have to mentally and emotionally detach yourself from both these lives and keep them segregated. I keep both my lives separate and do not bring work to home and vice versa. Shed off your ego and be willing to adapt to all situations and you are sorted."
Lubna Qassim told Khaleej Times: "We have pioneered this initiative because we believe empowering young women can work wonders for the society. We want to see fresh entrepreneurs in the country who will clearly make a difference to the world."
Amal Murad is the first Emirati athlete to pursue a career in Parkour, which is a sport that involves going, rather jumping, from point A to Point B in the quickest and most efficient manner while overcoming obstacles. Amal graduated with a bachelor's degree in multi media design and was working as a graphic designer, while also being a Parkour athlete and coach whenever she got time.
Talking about the dilemma she faced about starting a career in sports as an Emirati woman, Murad said: "I loved the sport so much but we never had any such training and classes for women here so I decided I would take up the responsibility of teaching Parkour to kids and women. And that was when I felt things change as I now had a purpose that I was passionate about. I want to tell everyone that we always keep thinking of the destination and where we want to reach but we forget to enjoy the process reaching there, so I loved every bit of struggle I did to get there." 
Encouraging the new class of e7, Murad said: "Don't be afraid. It's okay if you jump and fall. You have to get up and try again till you succeed. It is not about where you go, it's about how you go. You will get moulded with your struggle so allow yourself to change. Be genuine, be what you are, stay true to yourself and you are on your path to success."
saman@khaleejtimes.com

What is E7 programme?

 
E7 stands for the seven emirates and brings together 35 women from across the country to develop and implement community projects, unlock their potentials, encouraging sisterhood between team members and friends. 
Under this programme, the E7 class of 2018 will be divided into groups, under various pillars - Education and Career; Women leadership; Culture and Heritage and Health and Environment. The teams will then work on projects for the welfare of the community.
"We mentor them and they come up with innovative projects as a team, which are then judged by a panel which will declare one team as the winner. The project of the team is then executed," explained Lubna Qassim, senior executive vice president and group chief general counsel, Emirates NBD. 
Reem, an Amity University graduate who was selected as one of the E7 students of the new batch, said the whole initiative is part of community projects in different fields. "The application process took us about an hour to complete. We had to write essays about how we would handle different situations in the UAE. The second round of selection was on the phone where we were asked questions about what our interests are; what field we would like to work in (which pillar). On the basis of those answers, we were selected and asked to choose ?one of the pillars of the community projects."
Reshma, who just completed her Masters from Herriot Watt, said: "I got interested in the programme as it was all about women empowerment and community development. The application form had a number of questions about how as a leader I would impact the community." 


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