Kawthar Sabri Al Kanni
"At the age of 56, I was not another bored housewife," says Kawthar Sabri Al Kanni. "I could not understand the emptiness that had set in after my six children moved on to find their path as grown-ups."
She was only 16 when she got married. "A year later, I had my first child. But I continued with my studies in Fine Arts from my hometown Damascus, through distance education."
Kawthar, who came to the UAE in 1975, has always been a busy talent. "I used to paint and draw in my spare time, make candles, design semi-precious jewellery..." Private exhibitions of her works soon followed, and accolades and awards were not far behind.
Her life seemed to be brimming with happy duties and responsibilities until the empty-nest syndrome struck in 1996. "That was when I joined Emirates Very Special Arts. It is an initiative of the Sharjah City for Humanitarian Services. I was asked to teach drawing to children with disabilities. Instinctively I knew I was going to be very happily involved in this new role." What she did not see coming her way was the emotional turmoil that would be the catharsis she was waiting for.
For Kawthar, the turning point was her interaction with a visually-impaired girl student who wanted to learn drawing. "I was so anxious and uneasy. I spent many nights blindfolding myself to understand what she must be experiencing.'' To help her draw better she made her interact with nature. "I took her to a garden where I made her hug a tree, feel the bark, the leaves... More blind students joined the class after knowing of my methods with her.'' Soon her students could ‘recognise' colours through smell and touch. "[My approach] was shocking to many, but my students achieved the impossible."
Kawthar is now 70 years old.The years spent teaching childrenwith special needs have left an indelible impression on her mind. She cannot imagine her life acquiring such a deep meaning anywhere except here.
"The UAE spends lavishly on these children. I have not seen a more generous country."
ABEER AL SUWAIDI
An Emirati designer, born and brought up in Abu Dhabi, Abeer majored in Communication Technology but started designing abayas as a hobby. She was the first designer to bring in the concept of ‘skinny abayas' to the industry, and that today has become her signature line. "I never followed the herd. But I did bend the norms and rules."
Brought up in Abu Dhabi, Abeer's parents opened up a world of opportunities for her. "I was educated in an American community school. I grew up watching plays and theatre, but at the end of the day, I would return to my Arabic roots. Yet there were times when I felt I was in a grey area between the two cultures. As a result, I was confused, lost and unsure of what I really wanted to do in life.
Life meanwhile had other plans for her. When she was in the first year in college in 2001, she got married. "Immediately after my marriage, I went to Singapore to join my husband who was working there," she says. "Simultaneously, I kept dabbling in various courses. It took me about a decade to understand that it was in the world of fashion design that my heart and soul belonged.
"One day, after a shopping stint for abayas. I realised that everything else around me had evolved but the world of abayas was still the same. It also dawned upon me that there was no one-stop-shop or hub for fashion designers from the Middle East.
"Then in 2008, I came up with ‘Ush' boutique, a concept store where the best of abaya designers from across the region display their work, all under one roof. Within a few weeks of the launch of my boutique in 2008, on Al Wasl Road in Dubai, we became very popular."
Fatima Nisar Khan
Fatima Khan came to Dubai seven years ago as a housemaid when her husband was bedridden due to a debilitating illness. She had four young children to take care of. And life had not been good to her.
She hails from Khojanpur, a very small village in Uttar Pradesh, India. Till the age of 13, she was living a happy life. She was one of seven siblings, her father earned enough money to afford them a reasonably comfortable life and they led a happy, normal life. Then she got married to a man much older than her who ran a small, roadside cycle-repair shop in the same village.
She was only in her twenties when motherhood and tending to home and hearth became her primary concerns. Then the illness struck her husband. It was left to the young woman to find a way of feeding her family. Her sister-in-law, who worked as a housemaid in Dubai, "was a witness to the way we were eking out a living and so would send about Rs5,000 every six months." In 2000, after the death of her eldest daughter, Shaheen, in a freak accident, Fatima decided she needed to take a leap of faith. "My sister-in-law managed to get me a job as a babysitter in Dubai."
Khan arrived in Dubai in 2003.
With a salary of Dh600 a month, she began to give a better shape to her tragically asymmetrical life. "Shortly thereafter, I took a loan of Rs200,000 from my sponsor, got our house re-built, spent some amount of it on my husband's treatment and also paid for my children's education.''
Thanks to her job, she has managed to support her husband's expensive medical treatment, her children's college education and has moved them all from a shanty to a proper, big house which has the luxuries other people in the same village only dream of. "For almost ten years, I did not know what it was to eat a square meal a day.
"This city has given me so much. It has changed my life. I know I will manage it all."
HARUKA HORII
Haruka Horii was three years old when her singing talent was discovered by her friend's parents. When Haruka formally began to learn music, at the age of four, she took to it like a fish to water. It was not hard to see why.
"My dad is a banker but he can play the guitar, trumpet and piano," she says. "My mum is a pharmacist but used to play the violin in her younger days. And my younger brother can play a whole bunch of musical instruments." At the age of five, she started learning to play the piano.
Born in Tokyo, the 28-year-old Horii shuttled between her hometown, Zurich, New York and New Jersey with her family. "I was 16 when I went to the US," she says.
"I earned my Masters in Jazz Violin from the New England Conservatory in Boston. It was there that I realised that my heart was in creating new and original music.
"I had never paid attention to Arabic music," she says, "but when I was invited in October 2008 by Dubai-based renowned harpist Shelley Frost, to represent The Fridge, it was a turning point. Suddenly I realised that there was a compelling connection between Arabic music and my desire to create something original. So I started playing fusion music with other artists from the Middle East and around the world."
"I had never imagined that there would be a whole new world of music which would change my mindset so completely. It has helped me compose my own music.
"Dubai introduced me to a different dimension of music. I am glad I came here." F
