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The team's 5th group meeting

Last Thursday, most of Kuni wa Kun team's members met to share, talk about, finalize points on launching the coming campaign. Here is a summary of what happened by Amal Ashtal.

We had the team's 5th group meeting, this time enjoying the fabulous site at the top of Burj Al-Salam hotel in Old Sana'a (thank you Ibrahim for pushing for this change). Although the plan was to discuss the initiative's progress for one hour before eating, it was difficult to defeat our hunger and we discussed things over food. Led by Ibrahim, the 3 hour meeting resulted in creating a structured working plan that divides the initiative into "units" and their coordinators.

Kuni wa Kun visiting pioneers

On Thursday, Jan 28, 2010, the Kuni-kun-ers had another interesting day. We began a group meeting at 1:30 pm at Mokha Bunn (the plan was to go to a restaurant but we decided that would be less productive)...lasting till 3:30, the meeting included overall discussions of where the Kuni initiative stands and what the next steps should be. Then at around 4, a group of us (Amal, Najla, Ibrahim, Zulfa, Fras, and Ahmed) went to visit Dr. Mohammed Asda at his home. He is one of those people with many hats: a neurologist, TV presenter, and musician who speaks Chinese fluently and is well-versed in religion. We also met Dr. Fuad al-Sabri from UNDP there and both of them gave us general advice on how to approach the woman's issue in Yemen. Being the wonderful host he is, Dr. Mohammed then entertained us by playing the piano and Oud while we munched on some snacks (more like attacked the food since we hadn't had lunch :S ).

Second Visit to the House of Folklore

On January 24, we (Areej, Ibrahim and Najla) started the literature-review process at the House of Folklore’s libraryin order to constuct a clearer image of the Yemeni woman - in the distant past. There was a variety of books containing old humorous stories and idioms, but unfortunately Mrs Arwa Othman was not there to help us pick the most beneficial books that would help in our initiative. We haven’t had the chance to finish our research, so we decided to make another visit next week to continue research.

Do you know about Meel al-Thahab center?

On Tuesday (26th of January), we (Areej, Najla and Ibrahim) were warmly welcomed by Ms. Fatima Al-Baidhani at Meel Al-Thahab. We introduced ourselves to her and gave a brief description about Kuni wa Kun, its message and goals.

Afterward, she told us about her institute (which is considered a NGO); it was established in 2007 by a group of people who wanted to maintain the verbal inheritance of our culture from vanishing. The name “Mayl Al-Thahab” was stimulated from one of the old folkloric stories. Mayl also means the eye Kohl, and Thahab is gold, and the most unique thing about a human is the eyes or the pretty eyes with Kohl. The institute’s main goal is to build a database for all our verbal inheritance (stories, songs myths, etc…). They are collected from people in different areas around the country (recorded, written or video-taped) and then saved.

Ms. Fatima emphasized that the new generation’s identity is deteriorating because they are losing their verbal inheritance and are negatively affected by Western ideologies and behaviors. She also noted that this institute might be the door for our country to develop and prove its unique identity. When we asked her about the reason of her interest in this verbal inheritance, she replied that she had a passion since she was a little child in listening to old folkloric stories and songs.

She ended by telling us that their website will soon be launched , and that she’s expecting another visit from us to discuss how we can use such folkloric heritage in our initiative.

Welcoming Pioneers

By Amal al-Ashtal:

Making sure I took advantage of working at the Sheba Center for Strategic Studies, I began attacking all my work colleagues at our center and telling them about Kuni wa Kun. The biggest victim was my boss, who is an expert in gender issues.

She's been very helpful so far, helping connect us with Sabrina and the MEPI Alumni Steering Committee (with whom we had a great meeting yesterday- Mai wrote about that). She also gave us some great ideas of activities we could do (such as reviving old traditional games) and pointed us to people who can be great hepf (such as her own husband who wrote a book on traditional proverbs in yemen that we could use in reflecting some interesting aspects of Yemeni oral culture).

Another victim was the head of the financial affairs, who brought the works of his very talented female neighbor to my attention. She has a fascinating collection of hand made items, from bags, to clothing, to cute little models of people in different social settings. We will hopefully be bringing this lady and exhibiting her work for sale during our IWD celebration.

I then began widening my attack at work to include guest visitors and the biggest victim of those was Dr. Mohammed Asda (who's a neurologist and also running a show on al-Yemen TV for more than 10 years now), who offered to give a talk on the IWD and even invited us to his home this coming thursday for a chat! (lovely, lovely guy!) .


This deal with Dr. Mohammed was made Sunday morning, and on Sunday afternoon I went to visit Dr. Raufa Hassan, as she'll be one of our consultants. She greatly welcomed the initiative, point me to some examples that we could learn from in Egypt, and cordially offered her office and its resources for us to use at our leisure.

The next morning I managed to pass by the National Musuem and spoke to the director, Mr. Abdulaziz al-Jindari, about the possibity of holding our celebration at the museum's courtyard. He was very welcoming, and even offered a gallery room that we can use to display any works of arts we might have.

The French Cultural Center called me this morning and they're interested in co-organizing the event with us! nice, huh!? We're meeting up with them next week.

A meeting with MEPI

By Mai Noman:
Editor-in-Chief
YoO mag

Amal Al Ashtal and myself had a meeting on January 25th with Sabrina Faber (MEPI) and two young female activists from the MEPI alumni, Om Kalthoum Al Shami and Lamees Dahaq. The ladies were extremely helpful and very hopeful about our initiative. They offered several contacts that would show support to Kuni as well as their advice based on their own experiences with similar projects. One of the main things we discovered is that there is a harassment police led by AbulGhani Al Wageeh. Amal and I will be contacting him as well as other referrals to find ways of cooperation especially that their insight on dealing with such issues will be invaluable.

*The MEPI (Middle East Partnership Initiative)Alumni Network is a community of alumni of MEPI-sponsored programs. It provides opportunities for participants to network with each other, develop their careers, and learn more about the accomplishments of the alumni community, thus helping to extend their program experience.