Competition mentor Lesley Cully, the brains behind the Buckle Up In The Back scheme, admits that much of her initial success had more to do with luck than skilled business negotiations.
In four years, her non-profit awareness campaign has grown from a small online movement, to a group which delivers talks to thousands of adults and children each year and lobbies the government to improve its road-safety laws.
She drives a bright yellow Buckle Up car and has a team of volunteers who help spread her message.
It is her experience as a self-starter that encouraged her to say "yes" when she was asked to be a mentor in the Philadelphia Creativity for A Cause competition.
“If we can get a good idea that improves the community, then it definitely needs to be pushed,” she says. “Creative ideas work. I really hope this campaign pushes some women who might be thinking ‘this should be changed’ or ‘that should be changed’ into doing something about it.”
Ms Cully, a mother of two originally from England, has one aim – to get a mandatory seat belt-in-the-back law introduced, and more importantly, enforced.
After seeing dozens of children in cars standing precariously on their parent’s laps or peering into the front of the car, Ms Cully set up a Facebook page to air her views.
She started by calling on parents to strap their children in, and giving basic tips such as making sure the metal part of the belt is covered during the summer months.
“Then someone told me to get a car sticker, but money was an issue. It just happened that a company that was looking to support something in Dubai saw it and wanted to help. Now here I am doing presentations and driving a Buckle Up-branded car.”
The competition, which is in fifth year and has been overhauled to include mentors, is offering up to Dh100,000 for the woman (men are not eligible to enter) who comes up with the best idea to help improve the community. It can be anything from creating a better recycling model in a compound, to setting up a book-sharing facility, and everything in between.
The top entrants will be teamed up with one of five mentors, including Ms Cully, to help them organise and elaborate on their proposal before submitting it to the judges.
The other mentors include Saher Shaikh, the founder of Adopt-A-Camp; Sandra Saksensa, a financial independent counsellor for women; Mina Liccione, founder of Clowns Who Care; and the Emirati sculpture and jewellery artist Azza Al Qubaisi.
Mina Liccione, co-creator of the UAE’s pioneering comedy troupe Dubomedy, hopes to find someone with an idea that helps people less fortunate than themselves.
The bubbly New Yorker, who moved to the UAE in early 2008, is one of the country’s most recognised faces in comedy.
She is no stranger to the spotlight having spent time on New York’s Broadway in Stomp and dozens of other theatre and art shows.
She is married to Emirati comedian Ali Al Sayed, with whom she set up Dubomedy in late 2008.
“It is all halal comedy,” she says. “We don’t deal with religion or politics. We wanted to reinvent comedy as a halal positive thing. We are very passionate about using comedy and art to have a positive impact.”
As well as running Dubomedy arts school, Ms Luccione and Ms Al Sayed set up the Clowns Who Care Project as "art for a cause, not applause".
The non-profit scheme takes comedy to special-needs centres, elderly community centres, charity events and hospitals. The clown element came from Ms Liccione’s experience in the US, where she got a scholarship to the Clown Conservatory performing arts school in San Francisco.
“In the first two years of Dubomedy we had no sleep,” she says. “Then after the second year we were established and I said I wanted to bring this element of what I had started doing in the States to here.
“It’s our non-profit. We don’t exchange any money. It was important for us to give something back.”
It is her experience with Clowns Who Care, rather than Dubomedy, that she feels will make her a good mentor.
People living in Dubai, she says, have a “blessed life” which often, more so than in other places, makes them want to give something back to their community.
“I get a lot of messages through Clowns Who Care from people who say ‘I have this idea, do you know who I need to contact to connect the dots?’. It’s a bit more difficult here to get things started than it is in the States, for example.
“I have lots of volunteers who write to us to say they’ve been looking for volunteer organisations and been having a hard time. There are lots of people who want to do something good here but don’t necessarily know where or how.
“We have such a blessed life here. It’s important to give back and stay grateful.”
This is the first time the campaign organisers have enlisted a team of mentors to help potential entrepreneurs. Previous years have focused on up-and-running organisations that already have the financial backing and support.
The aim, they say, is to include “everyday women” who want to make a positive difference in the community, but lack the resources to execute their plan.
Some of the ideas already submitted include setting up a job portal which lists part time or flexible jobs specifically for mothers, combined with a service to help mothers re-entering the workforce update their CV and prepare for interviews.
Another suggests establishing an online platform for borrowing, lending and exchanging tools, knowledge, books, crafts or expertise. In a similar theme, another entry calls for an online platform for organisations working for different social causes to come together, share ideas and resources.
Azza Al Qubaisi, 35, an artist and jewellery designer from Abu Dhabi, is familiar with the difficulties of reaching out to different parts of her community, and different parts of her country.
As well as being a successful artisan in her own right, she uses her experience to offer young women in the Western Region of Abu Dhabi the chance to make something of themselves.
“I have a small design incubator in the Western Region, in Madinat Zayed. There is nothing like that around there, at all. It used to be a storage room.
“Everything that I didn’t have when I was trying to become an artist, I have put in there for the women. There are all the tools, and also people to help them.
“I think I’m very lucky because my father told me to try, and simply said ‘Azza if you fail, at least you will not come to blame me’. That made me find ways to succeed but it was not easy, especially being a woman.”
Young women around the area, many of whom are not able to travel to Abu Dhabi or Al Ain cities because of family commitments, are able to learn the techniques of art and design. Ms Al Qubaisi then offers them a chance to make contact with the relevant people to try to show their work at the various events around the UAE.
“At the end of the day an artist or creative individual is a person who has a vision,” she says. “Whatever the thing they are doing, there is a case for it. There is not much that we can give as creative individuals but there are so many that hide away and never showcase their work because they are busy with their daily lives and jobs.
“My issue as an Emirati is I want to try to find a platform between the seven Emirates, and everyone in them. I would love to mentor someone young who wants to achieve something big for the Emirates as a whole.”
Visit www.phillyarabia.com to submit an idea, or tweet @PhillyArabia using the hashtag phillycreate. Ideas must be submitted by April 12 and the judges will create a shortlist to go on and work with the mentors.
munderwood@thenational.ae
