When Hamdah Khalfan Al Mansouri was 18, she decided to break out of her cocoon.
"If I can do this, I can do anything," she says.
And so she bungee jumped. And dangling over a lake in Arizona, the Emirati was reborn.
"I came back a stronger, braver, and much more social person. I was no longer afraid of anything."
Hamdah's legs were damaged during birth and she has lived her life in a wheelchair.
"I found out I had a chance to regain [use of] my legs up to age 7 through surgery, but my family didn't know about the cure and our doctors here didn't do anything to revive them," says Hamdah, who is soft-spoken and regularly gets mistaken for a child on the telephone.
Now 29 years old, newly married and with a baby on the way, she is finally content after spending much of her life secluded.
"I found my salvation through poetry. I was alone most of my life, isolated from people, and so I would sit and compose poems that comforted me."
From the challenges of a person confined to a wheelchair to her friendship with her pets (such as her favourite Russian Blue cat Evian) to her love story with her husband, Hamdah's poetry explores khawater, the deep emotions buried and tied to life's different scenes.
The Emirati poet will be sharing some of her work on Wednesday at Speak Abu Dhabi, an event at the Paris Sorbonne campus that will feature free live poetry performances.
"They will be mostly love poems, those I composed to my husband when I found somebody out there who loves me as I am," she says.
Hamdah met her husband, who is from Syria, while they were both looking for a spare mechanical wheelchair. He was looking for one for his cousin while she was looking for one for a person in need. At first, her family rejected the marriage proposal but her love story came to a happy ending last year.
"He is my best friend. He understands me and always stands by me no matter how crazy some of things I want to do [are]," she says.
While she is an unpublished poet, Hamdah has been writing poems since she was a child. It all began when she rescued an injured bird in the driveway of her house.
"My family told me to leave it there, that it will die and that will be it. They told me not to concern myself. But I love birds and animals; they understand me and I understand them," she says.
The bird eventually recovered and lived with her for a couple of years. It soon became a tradition for the little brown bulbul to sing to Hamdah as she sat in the garden or her room composing poems about love and friendship.
Hamdah has also rescued cats that had wandered into her place, raised hamsters, rabbits, guinea pigs and a bat. "My family of animals kept me company and we had a special connection. I just had to look into their eyes and I would know what they feel, and they would know what I felt."
When the bulbul died and she needed help to bury it, Hamdah wrote some of her strongest poems.
"The pain of loss, the pain of my inability to save it from death or even bury it, this sense of helplessness that we all go through at some point in time, all came out as a collection of poems that to this day makes me cry," she says.
Growing up as an introvert with strict parents, Hamdah rarely went to malls or public gatherings and had few friends.
"Most disabled people ... live like I lived, alone in isolation. Often it is the family that makes it difficult, as some are ashamed or just don't know how to deal with a child with special needs. Then you have the society and logistics like lack of transport or lack of access that make it uncomfortable for us."
But her life changed when she won a scholarship to study in the US and, against all her family's protests, she went. "I had a maid that helped me in and out of the wheelchair, but most of the time I was on my own. I would go to the mall. I would go to the bank. I would wander and stroll the streets in my wheelchair. I felt normal, like I was like everyone else. The US changed me. It made me independent and it gave me a new take on life."
She was at Arizona Sate University for three years, studying business, but her education was cut short when her family summoned her back.
"But I was different when I came back and my family had a hard time dealing with the new independent, outspoken Hamdah who could fly. They were used to the quiet, unmotivated Hamdah who couldn't move."
Hamdah started working as a receptionist at the Zayed Higher Organization for Humanitarian Care and Special Needs, where she often ends up counselling families that come into the centre.
"I tell the child, I tell the parents, the disability is in the mind. We are all normal. We are just normal differently."
Her dream is to have a special majlis-like centre where she is the "missing link" between the authorities and the families with special needs. Hamdah says that there is currently too much bureaucracy and paperwork.
"I would be the human link, as I understand both sides."
Hamdah broke barriers three years ago when she tried out for the Abu Dhabi poetry challenge show The Million's Poet, and was seen on screen reciting poems of courage and belonging.
"I said, we are not different. We are not to be pitied and shut away. We are active and giving members of our society. Give us the ramp and we will reach you," she recalls.
At the time, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, happened to be sitting in the audience.
"His Highness came over to the room where I was, as none of the staff was willing to carry my wheelchair up the stairs to the stage that didn't have a ramp. It was a beautiful moment. I was in the clouds when His Highness congratulated me on my courage to come and speak out," she says.
Hamdah hopes her story and her poems inspire whoever hears them to be like her and to take up the challenge that is life.
"If you are sad or happy or unsure of yourself, try composing a poem. You would be surprised at the power of poetry."
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The biog
Nickname: Mama Nadia to children, staff and parents
Education: Bachelors degree in English Literature with Social work from UAE University
As a child: Kept sweets on the window sill for workers, set aside money to pay for education of needy families
Holidays: Spends most of her days off at Senses often with her family who describe the centre as part of their life too
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
Company%20profile
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