Archive | January, 2010

Thaer

Bahraini Views, the series I created to celebrate inspirational Bahrainis opened my eyes to a lot of things about the Bahraini spirit. One is that we’re not “special”, two is that we’re just normal human beings with regular aspirations, emotions and expectations, and three, although we live in a tiny speck of a country that doesn’t appear in most world maps, bogged down with more than our fair share of adverse circumstances, some of us rise above the surrounding doom and gloom and just wrench out the tiniest dot of opportunity, build on it and change the shape of our lives and those around us.

Meeting such people is not just inspirational, it is also humbling.

These inspirational Bahrainis are not exclusive to Bahrain of course. We’re a small country, yes, but our reach is far.

Consider Thaef Hashem for instance. Driven away from the home country, with hard work, tenacity and determination has carved something out for himself.

Thaer Hashem, 27

Originally from Bahrain, now a finalist in medicine at St George’s, University of London

When Thaer was 14, his parents and three siblings were forced to flee their family home in Bahrain. “My father was being tortured by the government,” he says softly. “So we applied for asylum in the UK.” But Thaer struggled to fit in. “We had to start life from scratch – we had very little savings, and were living off benefits until my dad found work,” he explains.

“I started school unable to speak any English. It was very frustrating. In Bahrain I’d dreamed of being a doctor, but suddenly I was the new boy. I couldn’t understand the meaning of the work I was meant to do, let alone do it.” With his family struggling financially, Thaer also missed out on typical teenage life. “I couldn’t go out with mates because we didn’t have the money. They’d wear cool clothes, but I couldn’t and I felt different.”

Thaer worked hard to improve his English, and took GNVQs and an A-level in Arabic, his first language. “My teacher told me that wasn’t enough to get into medicine, and also that universities would rank me as an overseas student, since my family didn’t have indefinite leave to remain in the UK, so I couldn’t afford it. But I was desperate to go, so I started contacting as many unis as I could. By chance, I discovered that Kingston had a special scheme to increase university participation. They assessed me as a home student for the medical science course, and I got in.”

At Kingston, Thaer supported himself working as a barman and at Russell & Bromley. He graduated with a 2.1. “My family were so proud. My dad quit school when he was 15, so me going to university was a big deal. Also around that time, my family was given leave to remain in the UK.”

Thaer’s lecturer at Kingston then told him about St George’s medicine course, which considers students from different backgrounds, and encouraged him to apply. First, he had to take a year out to earn money to pay back debts he had already run up, but in 2004 he applied.

“Getting in was a dream come true,” he says. “I’d never have thought someone from my background would be able to get into such a competitive degree. I’ve decided to specialise in plastic surgery, working on trauma cases in the UK to give something back to this country. I’m so grateful for the widening participation schemes. Not everyone has equal opportunities to shine at school.”

The Guardian

Thanks for the hat-tip Mike

Funky seats by the pool

Funky seats by the pool

Funky seats by the pool, originally uploaded by malyousif.

I wasn’t very sure of these seats at first. I put them in the office in the balcony for the staff to have a nice relaxing space, unfortunately that didn’t work. They complained that they belonged more at a nursery than an office!

We’ll, it’s their loss. I moved them since to our pool deck and I must say that they’re starting to grow on me.

These Finn Stone seats are sold by Nola Concept (disclosure, it’s owned by my sister) in the A’ali Mall.

Whatever you decide to do, I hope you have a wonderful, peaceful and relaxing weekend my friends.

The Conscience of Bahrain’s Environment

How many of you haven’t heard, read or seen the work of Khawla Al-Muannadi?

Like thousands like me, us Bahrainis think that she epitomizes the conscienceless of the Bahraini environment. Through her work, columns and appearances she reminds us of the dying palm groves, the soiled sea, the suffocating mangroves and the urbanization that is threatening indigenous wildlife and their habitat. Her passion alone awakens in us that yearning for times gone by and pushes us to demand that the remaining environment be protected.

Khawla Al-Muhannadi’s journey started with an epiphany in 2000 and has since achieved a lot in the short 10 years to bring environmental awareness to the fore of the public’s consciousness and to even the policymakers’ agendas. She has written many articles, started a children’s school in which the environment is a central theme and campaigned for the environment in various situations in Bahrain.

Her ways and methods raising the awareness of the need to protect the environment has been adopted in many areas of he world. So much so that when they refer to it, they now proudly call Khawla’s method “The Bahraini Environmental Experiment”. This experiment is recognised and lauded in various venues around the world and she and the Environment Friend Society – the society she inaugurated – has been invited to various high level environmental conferences around the world to share their experiences.

The lady is full of passion for the environment, extremely charismatic and a true modern Bahraini leader who is full of zest and a clear love of this country.

Bahraini Views – Abbas Mahdi Hassan – Clear Vision

Abbas is a fascinating person with a determined personality. He was one of the political prisoners in the 90s. He was released in ’96 with the only thing on his mind was to find a job and restart his life.

He realised that he missed out on education, so the alternatives left to him were bravery and hard work to make it on his own. He joined Mina Sulman as a labourer for 3 months, then left to Bahrain Pack where he worked for 8 months at BD90 a month. He left that company to join a carpentry firm from which he fell in love with that trade and within a year he was able to start his own carpentry shop with a friend.

The partnership disintegrated after a year so back he went to the marketplace to get a job where he was made redundant in 6 months due to the company losing its main supply contract. He elected to restart his foray into private business with his brother and brother-in-law this time in aluminium, which he says is very similar to carpentry. His partners left within a couple of years having made their money so he was left on his own to peruse his vision with determination.

He heard of the premier EDB program to help small and medium businesses which provided them with business consultancy through a friend and was lucky enough to be selected out of the first batch of 10. His company – Quality Aluminium – was the smallest of that batch.

Being on that program was the main turning point in his professional life. Since then, he increased his business to include 3 aluminium factories with approximately 40 staff and a turnover of over BD1 million annually.