At a regional forum last week, Amany Abdel-Moneim discovered the full gamut of women's fears and aspirations regarding the next 10 years "Simple as it may have been, it was an enlightening experience." Thus Hassnaa Mokhtar, translator at Effat College, Jeddah, and one of the participants in the Saudi project My Life-Hikayti, set the context for a Cairo forum on the Arab woman's view of the future last week: "I'm very proud of my role in providing a different perspective on Saudi women -- showing the world that conservative dress codes need not imply the lack of a critical mind. A veiled woman can think, she can be creative and determine her own goals." A complex collaboration funded by the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, My Life- Hikayti involves a long list of institutions: the BBC, the UNICEF and other local partners in Egypt, Syria, Yemen and, of course, Saudi Arabia. "Hikayti aims at empowering a wide cross- section of Arab young women," Salma Abdallah Negm, a producer at the BBC's Arabic.com and the project's Arabic-speaking member, "helping them develop audio-visual stories about their lives today and their hopes for the future, and to express and share their personal dreams. To produce these stories, we held creative media and storytelling workshops in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen under the title, 'Where am I now and where do I want to be by 2015'. Each four- day event featured games, storytelling, drawing, photography and radio skills. We've had very diverse groups of between 10 and 12 each, both privileged and underprivileged, of various levels of education; their ages range roughly from 15 to 25." Stories produced in the workshop, she added, will be collected and published to help debate the issues in question on a wider scale -- with decision-makers and the media. Judging by the Cairo forum participants' statements to Al-Ahram Weekly, the project is not only enjoyable but informative and stimulating at a range of levels. Mokhtar, for one, a graduate of King Saud University, had embarked on the workshop -- to which she was nominated by her boss at Effat College -- with a heady mixture of excitement and fear: "I'd always dreamt of what I wanted to do but I never had the time to sit and think how to do it... The experience gave me a clear vision of the paths I want to tread. There are four of them: my career as a translator, and maybe my own publishing house, to help dispel misconceptions about Islam in the wake of 9/11; my son Ammar, who though he lives away from me since my divorcee, can connect with me in many other ways; my personal life in the company of my grandmother and father -- no, I'm independent, I take care of myself and I don't mind being alone; -- and, finally, the voluntary work I undertake to help people in whichever field I can, something that gives me great fulfilment." For her part Lima Zarrad, a 20-year-old agricultural engineering student in Damascus, enjoys writing poetry, playing music and drawing: "My family taught me to be strong, to have aims and faith in achieving them. I really enjoyed participating in Hikayti. We came from different social backgrounds, but it was easy enough to break the ice, after which we worked constantly as a team, digging deep into ourselves in search of hidden goals -- and the resulting platform was very empowering... It would be great to have such workshops in schools and universities, giving every student the chance to express themselves and be listened to. I believe the gap between students on the one hand and professors and teachers on the other may narrow as a result. If everyone lives the life they choose, that's how society will prosper -- it's how we can secure the future of our children. At least I know I will be doing my utmost to make my dream of becoming a geneticist come true within the next 10 years." Likewise Salwa Saudi, a 20-year-old Syrian civil engineering student: "I love my family. I like to spend all my time with them chatting, playing, having a good time, sharing moments of happiness and sadness alike. The workshop helped me get to know myself better, and reveal things I was afraid of talking about. It gives you the courage to voice your opinion and accept another's at the same time. My dream is to be a well- known teenage novel writer, and I hope to achieve it by 2015; but I also want to be a good engineer at the same time, to help improve my society." Salwa's proud mother too found the experience rewarding: "I've always encouraged Salwa to have a strong character and work to establish herself in her field of choice -- this workshop has bolstered her confidence and made her more open, qualities that I believe will endure and have an extremely positive effect on her future." Despite their conservative appearance, Yemini young women like Amal Hamoud, a 19-year-old secondary school graduate, have almost as much to say: "At the beginning I was very scared because it was my first time in any such project. I'd never even written a story, and I thought it was meaningless to try. Gradually, though, I blended in with the others. I started to speak and found myself opening up. And I ended up learning how to compose a story out of pictures -- lots of very useful skills. But the most rewarding part was to see how very simple activities can bring people together. By the end we were all close friends. I was surprised to discover my own creative talents, and happy to find people willing to listen to me, making me feel that my opinion counts -- wish I'd had such an opportunity at an earlier age. By 2015 I want to have become a computer scientist, or else a businesswoman." Asmahan Nasser, another Yemini, 19, gave up school after losing her father and fiancé: "My family encouraged me to strengthen my belief and overcome my loneliness. It's thanks to them I've been cured of my grief -- now I do voluntary work in elementary schools. The workshop gave me a chance to express my hopes for my family as well as myself with the aid of art -- drawing, taking photos, even recording our own voices. And we could simply join in playing a game. It has convinced me of the value of team work, because it made things clearer in my mind: I believe that education is very important for girls and, in the next 10 years, I would like to have the chance to study English and computer science." For Fatmah Younis, a 22-year-old Egyptian student of Oriental languages, the workshop was no more than an opportunity to develop skills and make friends: "Last summer when I joined, I felt the workshop would've been more beneficial had it lasted longer. But it helped me articulate my feelings for my mother, and I want this to be a message to everyone out there, because many of us are ungrateful to our mothers. My mother did a lot for me and my siblings, giving up her job to look after us. And we couldn't always see that. Now my only hope is to be like her, to bring up decent, well-behaved children. By 2015, on the other hand, I want to be a qualified interpreter. But that is only a small part of it..."
