Leading by Example: Her Excellency Najla Al Awadi

By: Nesima Aberra

If you ask Najla Al Awadhi, the youngest parliament member ever of the United Arab Emirates, where she got her passion for public service, she can point to many influences.

Part of this passion was fueled by her parents’ upbringing which taught her that women’s rights, reason, social justice, and freedom are fundamental in the Islamic faith and that a righteous Muslim would stand up for these causes. The other part was from her own curiosity.

“As an adolescent I found myself naturally gravitating towards reading books about civil rights, anti colonialist movements and biographies of people who stood up for reform and progress in their societies, this moved me, and I realized that it was my calling in life.

She names figures like Khadija, the wife of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai), Mahatma Gandhi and Susan B. Anthony, women’s rights activist as some of her inspirations and role models.

When she was a parliamentarian in 2007, Al Awadhi was a member of the Education, Youth, Media and Culture Committee, the Federal National Council Steering Committee and the Foreign Affairs, Planning, Petroleum, Mineral Wealth, Agriculture and Fishery Committees. Despite being a minority as a young woman, she didn’t allow stereotypes and expectations to distract her on the job.

“During my term, I stayed focused on the issues that impacted people’s lives especially education, and media,” she says. “At the end of my term my biggest critics had no choice but to respect me, because of my work ethic.”

Al Awadhi’s work ethic earned her a bachelor’s in history from the University of New Hampshire and led her to currently pursue a master’s degree at Harvard University. She rose in prominence for her column writing in local UAE newspapers on current events and social issues after finishing her parliamentary term as well as her active involvement in forums like the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders and Young Arab Leaders. She also became the first woman from a Gulf Cooperation Country to hold a chief executive post in a state run media organization.

Now, she has her eyes set on a new vehicle for change. In 2010, she founded her own company, Najla Al Awadhi Consulting to “give back and to make a positive difference especially in the lives of Arab women.”

The consulting group plans to offer workshops in public speaking, women and leadership and media and communications in the year 2011-2012. With her own experience of fighting the gender gap and supporting women’s contributions to the world, Al Awadhi hopes to empower women by developing their skills and achieving their full potential.

The challenge of working towards gender equity is real, but Al Awadhi says the roots of the problem are fear and ignorance.

“The only way to address these fears is through the aggressive and strategic activism of women for gender equity, and progressive legislation that forces change in behavior and habits in patriarchal societies,” she says.

Al Awadhi seeks to avoid generalizations as the patriarchal structure, she points out, is not exclusive to the Muslim world and that the rights Muslim women have vary from country to country.

However, she says that the fundamental issue of a patriarchal lens that interprets faith and gender roles is dominant across Muslim societies, and needs to evolve, because “woman need to be viewed for their humanity and not their gender.”

She says that unequal rights to citizenship have hurt not only women but also the economic development of Muslim countries because of the exclusion.

Though she believes every profession has a role to play, Al Awadhi says media has an especially unique role.

She says that media is so effective in helping social change, because easy access allows people to be exposed to pro-gender equity messages in a powerful way to shape opinions and actions.

In a May 24 blog post, Al Awadhi says she doesn’t label herself as a feminist, but she doesn’t believe that one gender is superior to the other, “but that they are complimentary.”

She does believe that women have a choice to define themselves or allow governments and environments to define them. The ability to “have it all” she says is difficult, but not impossible to her.

“It will require discipline, courage, focus, planning, networking, diplomacy, positive and strategic thinking, faith, ethics, a commitment to life long learning, and constructive critiquing of anachronistic traditional and religious views about gender roles,” she writes in the post.

And for Muslims looking to gain control of their identity and represent themselves, Al Awadhi advises actively raising awareness about the real interpretations of Islam and pushing down the extremists’ views.

“Each one of us can make a difference, you don’t need to be rich or to have a big job title, all you need is a strong will and commitment to help make a difference, to bridge the gaps between our communities, and to focus on our common humanity and our common goals.”

Follow Najla on Twitter: @NajlaAlAwadhi