Qatar's inspiring women who make a difference

If you have enough courage to believe, you’ve already achieved 50 percent of your goal. Women all over the world have had to add an extra element to this magical portion, that is the willpower to fight for equality in almost every sphere of life. Mere belief would just not suffice to make up that 50 percent. 

On the occasion of International Women’s Day 2022, Qatar Living embraces the theme announced by the United Nations "Gender Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow". 

Having said that, here are some women who have broken age-old stereotypes and dogmas and achieved heights in their careers across various fields: 

Carolyn Collins

General Manager of Roots Qatar

Roots Qatar is a beauty salon in Doha, founded by Debbie Algosaibi. Debbie’s sister Carolyn Collins came into the picture to help her sister out and sustain the business. She joined the salon as general manager and came armed with the expertise of an illustrious career from her experience in London’s competitive marketplace. Within a year of joining the brand, Carolyn was able to turn around an 80% increase in revenue and many improvements followed. The staff was doubled and awards soon followed: Best Beauty Salon 2018 and Hair Salon 2019 by Oh Lala Magazine.

Carolyn and her work embody women's empowerment as she truly believes in empowering others with her initiatives and activities. Not just content being the general manager of one of the best salons in Qatar, she’s gone on to build a community of supportive women who can network and give each other the inspiration everyone needs. The famous Roots Pamper Evening is a great way for patrons and potential customers to find out about Roots, sample their services, and meet with industry experts in hair-makeup-skincare, all at a nominal fee. Her initiatives at Roots include the Winter Fayre, an event that allowed women-led small businesses to showcase their wares. Their Fashion Swap event that involved clothes donation/swapping with participating women also bagged them the Green Event Award at the Qatar Sustainability Awards.

Elsbeth Blekkenhorst-Tammes 

Founder of Elisabetta Shoes 

Elsbeth has been a Qatar resident for nearly 12 years now. She worked for PwC and launched her own recruitment agency called Global Women Qatar, which is a women-centric recruitment agency. With her passion for flat, dainty shoes, Elsbeth is a pioneer in the country’s slow fashion industry. Slow fashion is a concept that embraces sustainability, transparency in the product cycle, and respect for the process including every person involved in it. Elsbeth founded Elisabetta Shoes in 2017 as a shoe brand and swiftly turned it into a fashion label. Since the brand’s inception, Elsbeth has expanded her product offerings to include accessories and a sustainable dress collection derived from plant-based fabrics.

During the peak of the pandemic in 2020, Elsbeth launched an initiative called ‘Shoes for Dreams’ where she collected new or pre-loved shoes in good condition and donated it to women hit by the pandemic. Another goal of this initiative was to reduce the filling up of landfills with such shoes, by encouraging the use of pre-loved ones.

Harriet Gyamfuah

Founder of Creatives Amplified

Harriet Gyamfuah is a British-Ghanian who has been in Qatar since a job as a Qatar Airways cabin crew landed her in the country in 2009. Before her cabin crew days, she was a publicist and soon wished to return to PR in 2011. Harriet wrote under the alias Hayat for several magazines and editors in Qatar while still flying as a cabin crew. She also dappled in photoshoots over the weekend. The rise of social media and lots of networking inspired her to use her prowess as a publicist and start Creatives Amplified in 2018. Creatives Amplified is a PR and events company that also specializes in social media consultancy and talent networking among celebrities, influencers, and talented content creators.

Harriet has also organically created a robust social media persona for herself and makes for a genuine, honest personality to follow. While she insists she isn’t really an influencer, her genuine opinions, great fashion sense and quick wit have made her popular with the social media crowd. Social media aside, Harriet is extremely motivated as an individual and is indeed a hustler.

Nawaal Akram

Disability Rights Activist

Nawaal Akram is a disability rights activist who was born in Doha in 1998 to Pakistani expatriates. Diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy at the age of 6, Nawaal’s initial struggle with an education rendered her depressed when she had to begin using the wheelchair at age 12, following a leg injury. She couldn’t continue at any regular schools owing to the prejudice against physically disabled children. Unable to even get into a special needs school or homeschool effectively, Nawaal decided to join Mada, a non-project disability project in Qatar.

Nawaal soon learned to wield social media as a space to promote ideas and began to share her views on education for disabled children in Qatar. She advocated for their rights and also worked on her passion as a comedian with Stand Up Comedy Qatar (SUCQ) collective. Not to be deterred further, Nawaal has also taken up Boccia—a precision ball game, which is a Paralympic sport. Soon in 2016, Nawaal Akram founded Muscular Dystrophy Qatar: an organization that raises awareness of physical disabilities among children within the country.

Nawaal Akram has also been named by BBC as one of 2021’s 100 most influential and inspirational women.

Sheikha Asma Al Thani

Director of Marketing and Communications for Qatar Olympic Committee and a Mountaineer

An inspiring figure for all women in Qatar and across the globe, Sheikha Asma Al Thani is the Director of Marketing and Communications for the Qatar Olympic Committee. Apart from her successful career, she decided to fulfill one of the most adventurous yet challenging wishes in life: to become a professional mountaineer.

Asma started her mountaineering journey in 2013. By 2014, she successfully summited Mount Kilimanjaro. Four years down the lane, she became the first Qatari to ever ski to the North Pole, while she brought pride to her country by raising the national flag of Qatar on 21 April 2018. Apart from this, Asma entered an all-female Euro-Arabian Polar expedition. Consequently, Grazia magazine came to know of her achievements and decided to honor her as the magazine’s “Woman of the Year”. The next year, Sheikha Asma became the first Qatari woman to summit Mount Aconcagua.

Among many of her great accomplishments in mountaineering, Mount Manaslu in Nepal became yet another great milestone for her, making her the first Arab to reach the summit of one of the highest mountains devoid of any oxygen usage.

Sheikha Asma Al Thani aims to summit Mount Everest this year in April or May. She wants to spread the message of breaking the stereotypical image of the traditional explorer and portray women’s empowerment in Qatar. Women like her are like a ray of hope for those of us who are afraid of chasing our dreams. Sheikha Asma believes in dreaming bigger and working harder towards fulfilling those dreams.

Sheikha Asma’s ultimate goal is to become the first woman from the Middle East to complete the Explorers Grand Slam, and summiting Everest is just a milestone on her journey to inspire others to push past their limits, break down barriers and create their own realities. 

Aisha Al Shammakh

Qatari Film Maker and AlKass Sports Channel TV Director

A young gifted individual, Miss Aisha Al Shammakh is a Qatari filmmaker and AlKass Sports Channel's youngest TV director. She graduated in Broadcast Journalism from Qatar University (2018) and has a minor in Psychology. 

Aisha makes documentaries and believes that it is her main area of specialization. During her undergraduate studies, she made three documentaries. One of them was shortlisted for the Ajyal Film Festival, Qatar’s prominent film festival, and was screened for over 12,000 local and international audiences. Aisha also makes short films, and she would love to make a feature film one day. The start of her career highlight was her film “Millennials”.

Aisha has been an Ajyal judge for four years and has also volunteered at the Al Jazeera Documentary Film Festival. She is also one of the founders of the Film Club in Qatar University and became its president in 2016.

Aisha encourages everyone out there to always work with what you’ve got and push yourself because for instance, like every film you make should teach you something you didn’t know before and will develop your skills more.

Reem Al-Kuthairi

First Female microlight Pilot in Qatar

Reem  Al-Kuthairi graduated from Qatar University with a Bachelor's degree in Physical Education and Sport Science. Apart from being a former handball player of the Qatar National Handball team, Reem also works with Aspire Zone Foundation.

In a successful attempt to crush the existing societal norms that were intrinsically built to hamper growth for women in general, Reem Al-Kuthairi became the first female in the whole of Middle East to get a National Private Pilot license (NPPL) in microlight weight-shift control from the UK in the year 2014.

Reem also happens to hold a license in air sports aviation, becoming yet again the first Qatari female to achieve this. She is also a paramotor pilot.

She is the first Qatari female to own an aircraft registered with QCAA ( Qatar Civil Aviation Authority).

Reem urges everyone, especially women to try out adventures like she has. Her message to everyone is to never harbor negative thoughts and focus less on what people have to say about your choices in life. Rather direct all your energy towards achieving those things in life where your passion lies the most.

Amal Mohamed Saleh

Captain of Qatar National Basketball team and First FIBA female Qatari referee in Qatar

Amal Mohammad Saleh is a dynamic individual whose love for sports endures till today. Amal got a Bachelor’s Degree in Sport Management from Qatar University in 2017 and a Master's degree in Sport Entertainment and Management from Hamad Bin Khalifa University in 2021. Amal has a Higher Diploma in Nursing as well and works with the surgical department at Hamad Hospital. She aims to complete her PhD in sports in the UK and raise her kids with the same passion for sports.

Currently, the Qatar National Basketball team has Amal as their captain. She also happens to bag the FIBA (International Basketball Federation) license in 3x3 basketball making her the first Qatari woman to acquire this.

With a fabulous experience of 16 years in the field of Basketball, Amal plays the role of a referee as well for the Qatar Basketball Federation in the youth and men’s category. In the year 2019, Amal represented Qatar as a referee in the ANOC beach game and in the 2020 Master Doha 3x3. The GCC gold medal was bagged by her team for six years between 2008 to 2019. She was also awarded the best referee award.

Women like Amal pushes women around the world to conquer areas of life that have been less trodden by. Sports is one such field where women are elevating the playing field by the day.

All of us, at some point in our lives have a role model we look up to in life as inspiration. Which woman inspires you the most?

Let us know who is yours and why in the comments below!

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 Inline images credits: Carolyn,  Elsbeth , Nawaal Akram ,Harriet , Asma Al Thani , Aisha Al Shammakh , Amal , Reem Al Kuthairi