Rana Nawas:

[00:01] Hello ladies and gentlemen. My guest on today’s show is a global leader and true veteran in the field of education and philanthropy. Maysa Jalbout is the founding CEO of the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation for Education, an ambitious 1 billion dollar initiative to educate 15,000 youth in the Arab world. Within 10 years she has more than twenty years of experience in building effective organizations initiatives and partnerships. In Canada, the Middle East, and developing nations, Forbes recognized her as one of the 100 most powerful businesswomen in the Arab world in 2016 and 2017. Maysa is a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. and is on the Board of Governors of the IP. During our conversation we asked the question, does one need a higher education? We then talked about the education system at the moment and how it may be out of step with employment. We discuss refugee populations and their access to education and challenges faced in handing out scholarships. We explored the gender gap in higher education employment and specifically in science subjects. So let’s get into it. Maysa it is such a pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks so much for making the time.

Maysa Jalbout:

[01:19] The pleasures all mine, thank you for having me.

Rana Nawas:

[01:22] Well there is no mistaking your expertise. You’re an education person through and through. So let’s start with your own education and your early career in Canada. How has that prepared you or shaped your views on education?

Maysa Jalbout:

[01:37] Well I’m very lucky in that I went to Canada and I was 16 so I had my last year of high school in Canada and then went into university for both my undergrad and my masters and the quality of education of course in Canada is fantastic. One of the best in the world. So that immediately put me in a very privileged position and gave me a good grounding to take forward for this career.

Rana Nawas:

[02:03] Right, and you’re a former Palestinian refugee.

Maysa Jalbout:

[02:08] Correct.

Rana Nawas:

[02:08] How has that shaped your view on education? How has that impacted your own education?

Maysa Jalbout:

[02:14] So I always say once a refugee always a refugee, that’s part of who you are. And that has had a really profound impact on how I view education as not only a privilege but as of right and I have been very fortunate in that my parents have always ensured that I had a good quality education. So even when I was a refugee I was able to go to a private school in Lebanon and get a quality education. But that’s not to say that other refugees, Palestinian refugees who were in Lebanon at the time had that kind of opportunity. So I was very well aware of it from early on but that’s come sort of 180 for me now in my career and in my focus on education for refugees in particular and in seeing millions of refugees in our region who don’t have access to education and knowing very well that my path could have been their path if I wasn’t so fortunate.

Rana Nawas:

[03:17] Well in 2014/2015, you authored a series of reports on Syrian refugee education. Can you tell us what your findings were in your recommendations?

Maysa Jalbout:

[03:26] Yes so there were a series of reports that were commissioned by an NGO called Their World which is headed up by Sarah Brown and later used by Gordon Brown who’s the UN envoy for global education at the UN to propose a solution for Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey. I was basically asked to travel to those countries quite frequently to engage with the stakeholders — government, NGOs, international NGOs, the UN agencies — in basically trying to understand why the challenge of getting Syrian refugees and other refugees in those communities into school was so persistent and what we can do to help solve the problem. Today that challenge seven years on still persists although we’ve seen massive progress in that we have been able to absorb a massive number of students both in Lebanon and Jordan into the public education system. And that’s thanks in part to the countries themselves. The host countries but also to the international community support where many of the public schools were able to enter into a double shift system where Syrian refugee students were able to go to school when the regular shift ended. That’s one one way that it has been done and that’s been very effective.

Rana Nawas:

[04:48] So you mean if the regular students were going 8 till 2, the Syrian refugees would come in at around 3?

Maysa Jalbout:

[04:55] Correct.

Rana Nawas:

[04:56] 3 till 10 or whatever.

Maysa Jalbout:

[04:56] Exactly.

Rana Nawas:

[04:57] Wow.

Maysa Jalbout:

[04:59] Of course this this approach this double shifting approach is still extremely challenging for a number of reasons. It’s worked well for the primary level but it still has many challenges for secondary level and above.

Rana Nawas:

[05:16] Like what?

Maysa Jalbout:

[05:17] So for example in Lebanon only 12% of secondary school students who are refugees are able to go to schools to public education or private schooling and that has to do with the fact that many of them came into the solution far too late. They’ve been out of school for far too long beyond three years which meant that they could not be absorbed into the regular education system. But also because they have many other challenges many of them are working some of the girls have gotten married too early. And of course there’s a capacity issue in the countries themselves. Countries that are struggling with their own, you know, quality education issues.

Rana Nawas:

[06:06] Yeah I mean it’s hard enough for Lebanon to educate their own youth and then how many Syrian refugees are being educated there too?

Maysa Jalbout:

[06:14] Well, right now we’re in the hundreds of thousands. I mean there are over 2 million kids who were, you know, we were trying to help through through the system and the public education system in Lebanon is weak in itself, absorbing only 30 percent of the Lebanese population. So the vast majority of Lebanese themselves go to private schools.

Rana Nawas:

[06:36] And how does that compare in Jordan and Turkey?

Maysa Jalbout:

[06:39] The public education system in Jordan is much stronger. It is, you know, there are over 3,500 public schools. In Turkey, obviously, the education system is also much stronger. It’s, you know, it’s a much wealthier country but every country has its own challenges. Language barriers are a huge issue especially in Turkey where the Arab nationalities of those refugees has meant that they have had to learn Turkish before they’re able to go into the education system in Jordan and Lebanon. It often meant that they have to learn English or French to be able to enter the system because obviously in Syria previous to them becoming refugees they learned mostly in Arabic.

Rana Nawas:

[07:21] Lots to consider. So let’s talk about your current role. Can you tell us a bit about the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation for Education and how you’re organizing to educate 15,000 youths in 10 years?

Maysa Jalbout:

[07:36] The Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation for Education started off under two years ago with the vision of Abdulla Al Ghurair himself who is a very well-known businessman here in Dubai who had this vision or this idea that he wanted to make sure that in addition to his business legacy, he’s found this business legacy, he wanted philanthropy to be central to that. So he started this foundation with the view of helping not just Emirati youth here in the UAE but Arab youth across the region with a particular focus on those who are underprivileged or disadvantaged or underserved. So he gave us this massive challenge of supporting 15,000 youth and we started very earnestly. We’ve now offered more than 750 scholarships to young people across the region mostly now in higher education where they’ve been placed in the region and just recently we’ve also started placing overseas in Canada and the U.S. Turkey as well.

Rana Nawas:

[08:35] So these are mostly scholarships for high school students to go to university?

Maysa Jalbout:

[08:39] Correct. So both at the tertiary level, undergraduate, and masters degrees. So we do we do offer that and we will soon also be working at the high school level.

Rana Nawas:

[08:51] OK. So you mentioned the region, how do you define the region? Where are these youth?

Maysa Jalbout:

[08:56] So all 22 Arab states that any young Arab in any Arab country can apply without the support of a third party. They can apply directly to us online. They can enter their application and they have all the information they need there. But of course we also seek them out through schools, NGOs, through support networks. We’ve mapped out many of the amazing organizations that exist on the ground to support young people. So we talked about refugees, for example, so U.N. agencies that support refugee youth. 17% of our scholarship recipients to date are refugees so that’s, you know, again a very important way for us to get to students who need the most support.

Rana Nawas:

[09:44] So all of them are students that would not otherwise afford to go to university?

Maysa Jalbout:

[09:49] Absolutely. They’re all very high achieving academically. They’re extremely hardworking but they each have, of course, their own story, their own challenges that they’ve been through. But the common thing that they have is that they would not otherwise be able to continue their education. Yet they have this huge hunger to go on and to improve their lives through education.

Rana Nawas:

[10:12] And is there a focus on gender with this initiative or do you look at boys and girls the same, how does that work?

Maysa Jalbout:

[10:21] So we are committed to providing an equal number of opportunities for boys and girls at the foundation. That doesn’t mean that in every single opportunity that we offer that we have that balance but we definitely aim to do that. What we’re finding is that because at the moment we are trying to fulfill a need for highly qualified STEM graduates. We’ve done a study with McKinsey that basically led us to believe that there is a need for a much greater number of high quality graduates in the STEM field because that’s where the jobs are coming and we’ve really pressed forward with that and for some across the region and what we’ve found is there’s a huge appetite for it. And you probably know this, Rana Nawas: , when you’re a smart young Arab your parents are probably going to push you to be an engineer or a doctor.

Rana Nawas:

[11:14] Yup. Engineer doctor and lawyer, right?

Maysa Jalbout:

[11:18] Exactly. 85% of the students that apply to the scholarship want to be an engineer. They don’t necessarily know why or what kind of engineer but they know that this is a good career. So they really pushed for it. We don’t have an equal number of girls applying, although when they do apply and if there are any girls listening, they do extremely well.

Rana Nawas:

[11:36] Okay. So girls applying to stem in the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation for Education you have a great chance, just do it.

Maysa Jalbout:

[11:44] Please do.

Rana Nawas:

[11:45] What are the practical difficulties you face handing out university scholarships? I mean in terms of these gifted children from less fortunate families. We talked about the girls not going towards STEM, which is really a global problem, but what have you seen in your experience the last couple of years? What impact does the scholarship have on the recipient themselves as a person?

Maysa Jalbout:

[12:11] I see two things. First what are the challenges in handing out the scholarships and what are the challenges that the students themselves face. So you would think that handing out scholarships to great universities whether in the region or abroad is easy, right? How hard can it be, you work with the university you provide the tuition and that’s it. But actually it has been very interesting. We’ve learned a lot and we found that there are many barriers to getting young people to not only apply to the scholarship, starting with making them believe that they will qualify that they do deserve the opportunity that they will have a chance to go into a great university so there is this issue of us just really trying to encourage them please just apply. Try. And then from there we found that universities in the region, as well as abroad, are not necessarily particularly the very high quality ones they’re not very well equipped or prepared to take on the students that we select. They want them. They they are so impressed by them now, especially that we’ve had a couple of years behind us. But you know these universities are largely for privileged students. So when a young person whether they’re coming from a rural area or a refugee camp pulls up to the American University of Beirut, they don’t necessarily see themselves there and so they need support whether it’s in the form of, of course financial support which we provide, but what we have learned is that we need to provide all the wraparound services. So mentoring, some also academic counseling, some career support. You know, 35% of the students that come into our scholarship are the first person in their entire family to go into university so they don’t have any idea how to even apply, what to apply for, what courses to select, what kind of support services are available to you in university. So because we place a cohort into a university, we’re able to work with them as a community and they also support each other and the universities work with us to provide these services.

Rana Nawas:

[14:25] I can imagine that, for example, even what to wear would be an issue. They wouldn’t know what to wear. I mean somebody coming you know the first person in their family to go to university, you know, going onto the AUB campus.

Maysa Jalbout:

[14:38] Yeah.

Rana Nawas:

[14:39] You know, it’s a real culture shock. And like you know, whatever $7, 8 coffee.

Maysa Jalbout:

[14:47] I mean to be honest we’ve learned not to underestimate any part of the experience. It’s a hugely overwhelming experience for these young people. They’re eager, they’ve got the drive but we really need to prep them and we need to make sure that by coming into this experience that we eliminate some of those overwhelming feelings and experiences that they might have.

Rana Nawas:

[15:09] That they don’t fit in.

Maysa Jalbout:

[15:10] That they don’t fit in. That also we have demands as an organization on them, you know, things like not just going to university and maintaining a 3.0 average but we expect them to come out the other end as a leader and a contributor to the community so there is volunteer time that they need to give, there’s an internship they need to get. We’re so eager for them to maximize that experience and so when they first came in, especially they’re coming from a public school and so they’ve done well in that public school but they’ve landed at AUB. They need to learn in English which is a challenge. They need to adapt to this new culture. And so a lot of times it is overwhelming so the first year is a bit rocky. And they communicate with us a lot. And we have fantastic staff and a coordinator in each of the university who’s there to support them but we see this massive growth that happens in the first year and you truly start to feel that their life is, you know, turning around and that’s just phenomenal.

Rana Nawas:

[16:08] Wow. Sorry, you had something else you want to talk about, the burden on the student themself.

Maysa Jalbout:

[16:14] Yeah, absolutely. So I think that we underestimate what it is for a young person to not only have this goal of doing well in a scholarship so with most of these young people they are going to university not just because they want to receive a good education but because they want to improve their lives and the lives of their families and so the burden on them is not just about doing well, the burden on them is to be able to think about and put into practice how they’re going to do that. So we often, or when we first started we were really thinking about you know this means that we need to help them get a great job when they graduate so that they can immediately start helping their family and certainly many of them would say right off the bat when we asked them, what are you going to do to contribute that I’m going to educate my brother or my sister. You know, immediately they have that very, you know, they’re very conscientious. Some of them have even greater goals than they want to improve their whole community. They have a cause that they want to support. They have a business plan, you know. So our goal is to help them fulfill that but in the short term we’re also aware of challenges they face on a daily basis. If they’re taking care of a sick parent, you know, what does that mean. You know, combining their education with taking care of the sick parent or if they are receiving from the scholarship more money on a monthly basis than their entire family makes, how does that make them feel? You know, and us having to have a conversation with them about you need to spend this money on yourself because that’s how much it costs for you to go through this education and to live here and to be able to succeed because we try to make sure that they have enough so that they don’t have to have other burdens like working and all that. So it’s a challenge for them and I have to say that the parents of these kids are perhaps even more amazing and impressive than the kids themselves.

Rana Nawas:

[18:25] How so?

Maysa Jalbout:

[18:26] Well I’ve had the opportunity to meet some of those parents particularly in the first year, you know, my team and I wanted to make sure that in addition to knowing that the kids through their application that we met some of them sort of for proof of concept and so we traveled I went to a few places and knocked on these families doors and sat down with them and saw how they lived and their parents talked to me about what the opportunity means to their children but to them. They’re inspirational. They, despite the challenges they’ve been through, they will do anything for their children and for some of them it’s very difficult to accept that they can’t be the one paying for their children’s education so they’re thankful for the opportunity and that in itself is very overwhelming but they are extremely supportive and I think in many ways they defy the stereotypes that we, you know, sometimes inadvertently place on some or some of these families. So for example, one of the young women who I think I sent you the picture of, Bedriya in a refugee camp in Lebanon. She is one of five children and her father, an older man, is her biggest champion. So when we were there interviewing her he was holding her hand and he was telling me how proud he was of her and how much hope he placed on her and how he really hopes that she becomes an environmental engineer and, you know, he cried when we told him that she is going to go to the American University of Beirut and so you think of the stereotypes and of the fact that you know so many people will say, oh it’s because the parents don’t want to educate their their daughters and you see that and the contrast and how he knows that her only way out of that refugee camp is for her to go to that university and live her dream. So incredibly inspiring.

Rana Nawas:

[20:30] I mean, I think a lot of the women who achieve wouldn’t achieve without the support of their fathers.

Maysa Jalbout:

[20:36] Yeah, this is very true.

Rana Nawas:

[20:37] Certainly seen it in my world and myself and my sister, our father was our biggest champion. Of course, our mother too. But I think fathers play a huge role in propelling their daughters forward. Everywhere, refugee camps or not. I understand that the foundation has made one billion dollars available, is that right?

Maysa Jalbout:

[20:54] That’s correct. So the goal is to spend one billion dollars in 10 years on education opportunities and to be honest with you that sounds like a huge amount but when you’re talking about cost of quality education in the region that’s actually not a lot of money. It’s even less money when you think about the demand. One of the things that’s been very overwhelming about this foundation and its mission and this scholarship is the amount of young people that apply for the scholarship. So when we first started in the very first year we put out this website and we thought, okay let’s see how many kids find us with very little promotion and, you know, now we’re less than two years away and we have something like over 35,000 young people who are in our database who are all deserving, mostly, of going on to higher education but we will only be able to help so many of them. So one of the things that we have started doing as a foundation is talking to a lot of people, to a lot of philanthropists, a lot of foundations about the need for us to create a stronger community of philanthropy to rally around those kids because we’ve discovered that there’s just a massive amount of hunger for education that’s going unfulfilled.

Rana Nawas:

[22:22] And talented kids, hungry for an education and just can’t get there.

Maysa Jalbout:

[22:27] Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, what really is perhaps kind of challenging for me as a CEO of the foundation for our board of directors is those young people that were not able to take what happens with them. You know, where did they go? Do they move on? Are they able to you know to pursue something else? Sort of the wasted potential is really hard to take.

Rana Nawas:

[22:54] Yeah I’m guessing it’s not always happy days when you’re handing out scholarship and deciding who gets what. What keeps you going, I mean what inspires your life’s work?

Maysa Jalbout:

[23:05] You see young people, you know, I am inspired by their aspirations, by their dreams, by the small amount of investment that it takes for them to just go from, you know, just having very basic dreams to being these incredible people. That’s really what motivates me and motivates everyone that works at the foundation. I’m very lucky that I have this incredible team of mostly young women, have to say, from the region who are themselves, you know, some of them have had their own stories but others who have just chosen very early on to commit their lives to helping others. There’s a lot of hard work and right now we’re going through a selection process so I want to get a shout out to my team who are working extremely hard day and night. You know, it’s finding those gems, you know, the diamonds in the rough. They’re actually interviewing students online right now and we we we kind of keep each other going by sending messages, oh, you should see this young person we interviewed today is just remarkable, you know, and tag them because you think I’m going to come back to this student getting to find out what he’s doing or she’s doing when they get into university so that’s what every day that’s kind of the inspiration.

Rana Nawas:

[24:28] Let’s shift gears a bit now and talk about education more in general. So there is a view, for example, when I’m sitting with my friends and we’re chatting and we’re like, well the education system the syllabus seems so antiquated. It seems like it was built for another era and it’s not evolving to reflect the changing job landscape. There’s still a high focus, especially in the Arab world for example, on memorization. So what is, in terms of your your background in education your involvement in it and also you’re on the board of the IB, what do you see happening in the world of education? Is there a renaissance coming?

Maysa Jalbout:

[25:08] I think so, I hope so. For our children and generations to come. You know the challenge with education is a global one. With the millennium development goals, the focus in education globally was on access and so it was also in the Arab world and in the last 15 years we’ve seen quite a bit of progress and that progress is primarily been in getting kids into primary education. So in the many countries we have near universal primary education but that has often been at the expense of quality and almost universally across the region. We’re seeing poor results in exams, you know, in comparison to the rest of the world. So a few years ago at Brookings at the Center for Universal Education I was part of a study called Arab Learning Barometer where we were able to quantify data that showed us that almost 50% of young people, children in this region were not learning basic literacy and numeracy. So you you often hear concerns around sort of performance and peace but that kind of puts it in very plain terms so it’s not just about kids who are out of school, it’s the ones who are in school who are actually not learning the skills they need to succeed to be able to move on. So we’re seeing a really big focus in the in the region on improving quality to education but it’s a long term game and, you know, no country can afford to sort of take its eye off the goal and unfortunately at the same time that goal continues to change. So, you know, the demands on the education system are now increasing in that we’re no longer looking for young people to just memorize as you mentioned but they’re now having to learn new skills and prepare for jobs that we don’t even understand, that we don’t even know what those jobs are going to be. So everyone has to ratchet up their game.

Rana Nawas:

[27:12] I mean, you talk to moms and this is panic for the moms, right? What school should I put my kids in? What system should I put them in? I mean, do you have any suggestions or any questions you recommend a mother should ask herself before choosing a school for her child?

Maysa Jalbout:

[27:30] Well, here in Dubai, of course, we’re very privileged and we have, you know, our choice of many different types of education systems so many people who are here choose to put their kids in the education system that most mimics their own education system in their home country but I think that more important than you know the nationality or the type of education that your child receives is questions around how do you assess the learning process of the child. Is the education process, the learning process at school cater to the needs of my own child and am I able to, how do I measure that progress on a day to day basis? And I think very importantly it’s not about tests and I always talk about that with other parents I even have to remind myself it’s not about that score on the test, it’s really about how does my child do overall in any one year of learning, both inside and outside of school and do they have a holistic experience. Is the experience in that school a holistic one that nurtures their entire selves? It’s not just about math and science, although that’s important, but are they developing into a person, you know, someone who is caring for their community, a citizen, someone who understands the issues around them, is aware of sort of the pressures and knows how to handle them, things like social media. So it’s about that whole experience and no two systems are equal for two children. Everyone has to decide on the system that works well for their own family and children.

Rana Nawas:

[29:18] And how practically can mothers assess this stuff? I mean, if they’re not educators themselves, for example, how do I know is the school going to nurture my kids whole self? Are there telltale signs in a school? Are there red flags?

Maysa Jalbout:

[29:31] So in Dubai there are actually systems put in place or the KHDA, the body that oversees private schools in this country does assessments of the school system so you can go in and check the reports and you see some key measurements and I think that’s a really fantastic and important tool as a starting point but at the end of the day my message to parents is you go to the school. You visit. You sit down. You talk to the administration. You ask who the teachers are, where they’ve been qualified, what kind of experience they have, what does the day look like, what kinds of extracurricular activities are available, how do they nurture that community, and how will I be able to check in about my child’s learning. And we’re also, you know, there are all kinds of tools now so some people some parents are reticent maybe but I really do encourage parents to get online be able to communicate whether it’s through e-mail or other tools that schools are using to communicate what’s going on at the school every day.

Rana Nawas:

[30:34] Okay. Let’s talk, Maysa, if you don’t mind a little bit about jobs. So we touched on it. You touched on, you know, the challenge for education is very difficult because the job landscape is changing fast as you say, we don’t know, you know, in 20 years what most of the jobs will be. But is there a danger that we’re educating our youths here in the Arab world only to for them to sit unemployed?

Maysa Jalbout:

[31:00] Well certainly that has been a big part of the story to date. It has been a source of frustration and even a concern a worry that many young people who have invested time and resources to complete their education to go to university have not found that job waiting for them and that is sort of not strictly an education challenge or although it is largely that in that the education system hasn’t prepared them for what comes after. So, you know, very practically young people will come out from the system having had no experience or no idea of the types of skills that are expected of them on a day to day basis, you know, in the workforce. But the flipside of that is it’s also that the economic situation in the Arab world is such that it’s not producing enough jobs. So it’s a double edged sword in that regard. It’s therefore incumbent on governments, education systems, all the way from schooling you know from early on to provide the information, the advice, the awareness to young people around what is happening in the job market and we’re working on a program at the foundation now that will start to work at the high school level to bring that kind of information to young people. What we’ve found is that they’re very much lacking information about it. You know, I mentioned that these particular young people want to study engineering but often they’ll choose mechanical or chemical engineering but not realizing that there are so many other streams that they can go into or that they can go into technology or they can go into health or whatever it is where they may have better opportunities over the long term. So we need to put that information in the hands of young people and we also need to talk to them very early on about what is needed for them to prepare. Because if you only start preparing them when they’re at the end of university, that’s often too late. We need to start when they’re much younger.

Rana Nawas:

[33:05] Preparing them for what jobs involve, how to work in an office environment, that kind of stuff?

Maysa Jalbout:

[33:11] Yeah. Try to start developing the kinds of skills they need to develop that, you know, don’t take just six months or a year to develop. You know, all the soft skills, language skills. One of the biggest barriers for young people who come from underserved backgrounds is that they don’t have enough English to be able to work in a multinational or even you know be an entrepreneur who needs to operate in the language of business, which is English. So we as a foundation struggle with that and end up spending resources to upgrade the English language of young people who are supposed to have come out of high school fully bilingual but are far from it. So there’s a lot of preparation that needs to happen much much earlier.

Rana Nawas:

[33:54] Well let’s talk a bit about the gender gap in the Arab world. So more women in the Arab world pursue university degrees than men. I believe the total the average ratio is about 108 percent women to men and yet three out of four Arab women remain outside the labor force. I mean is that statistic correct still?

Maysa Jalbout:

[34:13] Yes, I mean it’s starting to change in some Arab countries but on the whole we still see no more than 15 percent labor force participation for women across the region.

Rana Nawas:

[34:25] Why is that? I mean they’re getting these tertiary degrees in larger numbers than men and then they’re staying out of the workforce or being kept out. I mean, what’s going on?

Maysa Jalbout:

[34:35] Yeah. It’s sometimes difficult to explain especially when I travel and, you know, most of western communities will think of the challenge as a strictly access opportunity for young women and sometimes I have to explain that actually we have more women in the Arab world who go to university than men. In fact, they, you know, when they get in they stay longer and they do better in the education system. The challenge is in them dropping out of labor forced or not entering the labor force altogether and that is, the challenge that is multi-dimensional. Sometimes it’s cultural and you know obviously there are those barriers. Oftentimes it’s because young women, particularly those who we see them dropping out around the time they get married or have children and that’s because the workforce has not yet invested in supports for women, especially for young women who are the main caretakers and women have to make choices and they end up having to make the choice of staying home.

Rana Nawas:

[35:49] So for example, you mean there isn’t proper maternity leave policy, there isn’t daycare provided, government funded, that kind of stuff?

Maysa Jalbout:

[35:58] Correct. I suspect you know more about this than I do. Yes, absolutely. So companies and even government offices are not set up to support women to work. But it’s also you know the idea that women’s work is not necessarily as valued as men’s work but yet the economics of it prove the opposite. So a woman in the Arab world on average would raise her family income by at least 25% if she worked. If all men and women in Egypt worked, Egypt’s GDP would be raised by 34%. So the economics of it are massive and huge and are definitely motivating more governments and more institutions to invest more in supporting women to enter into the workforce and it starts early on as well with education and ensuring the young women who take that higher education route to understand that that investment that they are making, that their governments are making in subsidizing education, institutions that takes some, scholarship programs. That is an investment in them and in the, you know, not just their future but they also have a responsibility to contribute economically and I believe that’s changing and it’s changing in many ways. So women are not necessarily waiting for the workplace to change. Many of them are becoming entrepreneurs. You know, we’re starting to see a lot more pressure to have part time work, flex hours. You know, so I feel change is coming. It’s a bit slower than other parts of the world but this is definitely a global challenge that is a bit more acute here.

Rana Nawas:

[37:48] What I don’t understand is maternity leave policy. That is something so easily remedied, not from a naive perspective. I mean, really a government can make this work and yet from Arab governments to the United States, I mean this just doesn’t exist. I don’t understand why when Europe has been leading the way for decades.

Maysa Jalbout:

[38:11] Well I mean I think this is definitely one of, you know, one of the biggest challenges and the world has a long long way to go but I’m hopeful that we are seeing things shift. I mean you probably heard the news that the prime minister of New Zealand is pregnant and having a baby in June. She’ll be, I think only the second world leader to be having a child while she’s in office. I think that sends a really positive message to young women around the world that you can work and have children. It’s certainly not perfect but I think that, you know, it’s governments and it’s policies and it’s economics but it’s also communities of support and what you’re doing on this podcast in bringing the stories of women forward is hopefully also encouraging to younger women who are thinking about entering the workforce. That it’s possible to be a mom like you and me and also have a fulfilling career.

Rana Nawas:

[39:11] Absolutely. That’s absolutely the point. But so as a working mom, Maysa, do you have any tips to share with other moms out there and making it work? It’s not easy. Everyday, it’s not easy. We can’t lie to the audience. But do you have any kind of hacks that you might want to share?

Maysa Jalbout:

[39:31] I can’t say that I’m particularly brilliant at it. I have my challenges like every other mom out there. I’m lucky in that I have a strong community of support. My mother has been my hero and my rock throughout my career in supporting me and supporting my children and certainly I think that having a community of support is extremely important for any mother who is working but that doesn’t have to be necessarily a family. It could be a nanny, it could be your husband, it could be your extended community. When they say it takes a village, it’s not just a myth or a proverb. The main thing is I think for all women who are working is to keep the guilt in check and it does help to have a career that you’re very passionate about and you feel very strongly about. It makes it easier to get out the door in the morning and to say goodbye to your children, to feel that you are doing something of value for yourself or, you know, tasks that you’re taking on that day.

Rana Nawas:

[40:29] Absolutely and I would just add to be connected to other women doing the same thing. You know, find your tribe.

Maysa Jalbout:

[40:36] Yeah, absolutely.

Rana Nawas:

[40:38] Okay. One last question about education. Do we actually need a higher education? These these young, you know, 17 year olds, 16 year olds, the YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat generation, you know, they just want to be this social media sensation. They’re like, do I really need a higher education? What do you say to them or their parents?

Maysa Jalbout:

[41:03] So this is something that is top of mind and certainly I have to engage in discussion with all the time. You know there are all these sort of short courses or certificates that you can take to get your skills up to speed, you know, whether it’s coding or whatever it is and you can enter into a job market and do well and certainly for some young people I’m not going to say that’s, you know, that’s not the right path or they shouldn’t do it. The only thing I often say, especially when young people ask me, is that keep the long term view and think about higher education not just about preparing for the job market. I know that’s important but it’s also about what you learn, how you grow in that process and what long term skills you develop that can’t be taken away from you. Maybe I’m a bit traditional in the sense that I believe that, you know, some of these short term skills are not necessarily going to be the ones that save you when the job market changes or, you know, when people are no longer enamored by social media or coding or if that’s done by robots or whatever it is. The idea is that you need to have a solid foundation, a solid education that helps you carry through the good and the bad times and whatever skills you gain above and beyond that. That’s fantastic.

Rana Nawas:

[42:34] Skills like teamwork, for example, is that the kind of thing you’re thinking about?

Maysa Jalbout:

[42:39] Absolutely. I mean soft skills. So whether it’s teamwork, whether it’s another language, even coding I mean, you know, I feel a bit illiterate in the sense that I haven’t learned that and certainly I should. My children are. But I think the idea is that now with open education, online learning, that everyone should be learning all the time. So when you go to university, that 4 year 5 year degree, you’re learning has not ended. It has just begun and now it’s incumbent on us and certainly people are feeling the pressure every day and companies are seeing that as well with the training of their employees, is that they need to upgrade their skills all the time. So I often encourage people to take open courses whether it’s a course that leads to a certificate. There is so much rich content available out there and it’s avail, you know, it’s there for people to take. Sometimes it’s free and particularly for people who can’t make it to an institution, to university, to travel. That’s the part that’s exciting. That that learning and it can be in the form of a degree and we are offering online degrees now with very prominent institutions. Whether it’s MIT or in a state, you can be in rural Egypt or in a refugee camp or here in Dubai and be studying online from home.

Rana Nawas:

[44:08] Wow. It’s a huge leap forward, isn’t it?

Maysa Jalbout:

[44:10] It is and we in the Arab world have a lot to catch up on in that respect.

Rana Nawas:

[44:15] Right, okay. Well I have one last question then, maybe two if that’s okay. What is a question you wish people would ask you more often?

Maysa Jalbout:

[44:29] I guess being in my field, I would love for people to ask how they can help. And a lot of times they do. And so, you know, I relish the opportunity to kind of get in there and find out what they’re passionate about and to see if there’s anything I can kind of throw in and make a pitch for how you help in the education sector and how we help young people in the region.

Rana Nawas:

[44:55] So for the listeners who want to help, what’s the answer to that? All these ladies and men listening to this show and thinking how can we support your amazing work. What can we do? What can we actually do tomorrow?

Maysa Jalbout:

[45:08] So one of the best things that anyone can do, especially if they can afford it is to contribute financially to the education of a young person. A lot of times people want to help themselves, you know, so they want to give from their own time, from their own skills and I think particularly professional folks, like yourself, there is so much that you can do and I want to make a pitch to everyone listening that they take time to mentor a young person. One of the greatest requests that we have from young people that come to us is that they would like to improve their network. They would like to be connected to people who are in the professional space that they’re thinking about especially because if they don’t have that person in their own family or in their own community, a young woman who wants to be in technology would love to be able to have a couple of chats a year with another young woman or woman who is in the tech sector.

Rana Nawas:

[46:10] They need role models. You can’t be what you can’t see. So they need to see a role model.

Maysa Jalbout:

[46:15] A second thing is give young people internships. A lot of companies and a lot of people, you know, talk about that they can’t find young people. It’s really hard to find a match for the jobs that they’re looking for. But they see internships as a burden, like oh, I have to, you know, babysit this kid, but we really underestimate how much these young people have to give and how much they’re eager to learn and yes it requires a bit of investment on the side of the person of the company, but I think the long term return on that is really, you know, multiple fold.

Rana Nawas:

[46:50] Right. So contribute financially, mentor a young person, and provide internships.

Maysa Jalbout:

[46:58] Yes. Three great ways that everyone in the professional community in Dubai can contribute and beyond.

Rana Nawas:

[47:05] Love it. Thank you. And if they want to support the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation, how do they reach you?

Maysa Jalbout:

[47:11] Just come to our website and there’s actually lots of information. We’re actually currently recruiting for both mentors and internships. We also, from time to time, ask people who have gone to some of the universities that we’re placing young people at to help us screen the candidates, to help interview them. Which in itself sometimes is a very fulfilling process where you are able to identify talent, you help us, and it’s rewarding and exciting. So please do come to our website AlGhurairFoundation.org

Rana Nawas:

[47:45] Maysa, how can people find you personally on social media?

Maysa Jalbout:

[47:49] I’m on Twitter and Linkedin. My Twitter account is @MaysaJalbout and you can also go to the Twitter account of Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation which is @AGFforE. We’re also on Facebook, on Instagram. You know, we provide lots of information there on the organization but also on the needs of young people and how to support them and events coming up as well.

Rana Nawas:

[48:13] Maysa, thank you so much for your time. What you’re doing is incredible and so so important.

Maysa Jalbout:

[48:18] Thank you, Rana. This is an amazing podcast and I’m so grateful to you.

Rana Nawas:

[48:24] Thank you. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. You can check out show notes and more episodes at Rananawas.com/win or search When Women Win on Itunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I’d also love to hear your feedback and ideas for who I should bring on the show. You can find me on instagram @Rananawas. Thanks and have a great day.