Q Life Magazine Q Magazine (US) June 2017 | Page 20
Qatar and the US |
| Issue 3
From Doha to DC:
Spotlight on Qatar’s
Promotion of Global
Citizenry via International
Education
years spent in Washington, DC.
While Moneera was working
abroad and collaborating with
people from different places, she
felt a responsibility to act as an
Ambassador for her home country
and her heritage. When she thought
about students learning Arabic, she
felt there was a tool missing that
could assist them in connecting to
the language. Moneera created a
device to help students write their
names in Arabic as a way to find a
personal connection to the language.
Moneera
Al-Badi
Moneera Al-Badi is a proud
Qatari. She has lived in Qatar all
of her life – except for the two
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With support from Qatar
Foundation International (QFI),
Moneera designed and patented
The Q Wheel or “Madar Al-Huruf.”
“Madar Al-Huruf,” which means
“wheel of letters” in Arabic, is a
valuable, open, and free language
tool that introduces users to the
Arabic alphabet. Anyone who is
unfamiliar with the Arabic alphabet
can write his/her name by matching
English letters and sounds to their
Arabic phonetic counterparts. The
wheel has been used to ease Arabic
learning and communication by
demystifying the characters, which
can be perceived as intimidating.
Due to the success and demand
of the physical Arabic wheel,
QFI partnered with Moneera
and Qatar Computing Research
Institute (QCRI), a non-profit,
multidisciplinary computing research
institute, to adapt the design into a
mobile application. The app was
subsequently nominated to represent
Qatar at the World Summit Award
Mobile 2016.
Mohammed
Al-Muhannadi
“Change is what I aimed for,” said Mohammed Al-Muhannadi, founder
of 1Earth1Ocean (1E1O). “Contribution to the community was the way
to reach it.” After returning from Ocean For Life, a summer program
organized by Qatar Foundation International, Mohammed said that he
had found a different perspective about many things, most importantly
community service.
Mohammed, who has become a leading student advocate for the
environment in Qatar, aimed to create a project that would change his
country for the better. He wanted to start a venture that would engage and
inspire Qatari youth to protect the environment in their country.
He spent long hours studying the issues facing the environment in Qatar,
but Mohammed also delved into the issues that he felt were facing his
local community.
The result was the creation of 1E1O, an organization that helps young
Qataris raise awareness of environmental issues through the use of new and
social media, and make the change now which will benefit future generations.
1E1O also organizes environmental trips, sets up workshops, and holds local
events, such as beach cleanups.
Since he began the project, Mohammed has recruited students from
schools across Qatar and united them in a mission to protect the country’s
environment. He has led student excursions to Qatar’s coast, teaching
his peers about the importance of the mangroves, and showing students
how to use QFI’s Mapping the Mangroves app to monitor the coastal
ecosystem. During the 2012 United Nations Climate Change Conference,
he represented the Qatari youth voice on a panel that included experts from
Conservation International, the Qatar Environmental Research Institute, and
other regional environmental organizations.
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