Women mentoring project aims to benefit UAE communities

The E7 Daughters of the Emirates project aims to bring women from different walks of life together to work to better the community.

Hajer Al Zeyoudi, Adela Acevedo, Michele Wong and Tehzeeb Ahmed at Zaabeel Park. Victor Besa for The National

DUBAI // A new mentoring project aims to bring women from different walks of life together to better the community.

The E7 Daughters of the Emirates project will be launched in April by the Promise Of A Generation community network.

“We want to create a forum where a young housewife from Al Ain can collaborate with an entrepreneur in Fujairah and a young university student in Dubai,” said Adela Acevedo, 35, one of the founders of E7 and Poag member and a government policy adviser.

She said the project is not exclusively for Emiratis, as expatriates who consider the UAE home can also join.

“As a Dubai resident for the past seven years I am very proud to call the UAE home and feel quite rooted in this land and among its people. I hope to give back more than it has given me,” said the American.

In 2008, she co-founded Poag with three colleagues, Aida Al Busaidy, Aysha Al Hashimi and Esther Tang, to explore community issues and promote intercultural dialogue.

The E7 project will involve 35 women aged 18 to 25, with three Emiratis and two expatriates from each emirate.

It will start with a three-day summit from April 9 to 11, where the women will be asked to come up with ideas for community projects.

Each participant will be paired with an older mentor.

“What we would like to see in the next five to 10 years is more qualified, experienced, and trained women in senior leadership roles in non-profit, private and public sectors,” said Michele Wong, a 29-year-old Canadian corporate social responsibility consultant.

Hajer Al Zeyoudi, 24, an Emirati who works for the Prime Minister’s Office in Dubai, said that although the government had supported E7, the group needed to become more self-reliant.

“We need to start to think like a society-driven community by all of its members, especially by young people and their ideas to enhance our community and resolve our own problems in all levels,” she said.

Poag, also known as the Accidental Majlis group, has been promoting community dialogue for the last six years.