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Lekaa El Kholy, Woman Mechanic Fixes Wheels and Stereotypes in Egypt; Abdel Fattah el-Sisi Hailing Her as The Upper Egypt’s First Female Motor Mechanic


New Age Islam News Bureau

06 January 2021

• Loujain Al-Hathloul’s Nearly Six Years of Prison: Saudi Prince’s Strategy on Women’s Rights Is Doomed To Fail

• Tunisia to Enlist Women into the Army

• Online Quranic Course for Women Underway in Iraq’s Najaf

• How Female Politicians In Turkey's Ruling Party Help Strengthen Patriarchy

• Balochistan Awami Party’s Nusrat Shaheen Elected Senator Unopposed On Vacant Seat

• Egypt’s First Female Motor Mechanic Defies Conservative Norms

• Pakistan’s Entertainment Industry Is Finally Confronting Its Sexual Harassment Problem

• Health Ministry Makes An All Out Effort To Get Women In The UAE To Stay Fit

Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau

URL:  https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/lekaa-el-kholy-woman-mechanic/d/123998

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Lekaa El Kholy, Woman Mechanic Fixes Wheels and Stereotypes in Egypt; Abdel Fattah el-Sisi Hailing Her as The Upper Egypt’s First Female Motor Mechanic

By  Srimoyee Chowdhury

Jan 05, 2021

 

Lekaa El Kholy, 24, has been fixing cars for more than a decade in the village of Esna and has captured national attention (Facebook)

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Lekaa El Kholy’s father used to rub a little blackened engine oil onto her face and tell her to wear overalls when they went to the Egyptian city of Luxor to buy supplies for his car repair workshop.

It was his way of showing people his daughter was a mechanic just like him, and of confronting deep-rooted beliefs about gender roles that keep all but a few women out of traditionally male professions in socially conservative Egypt.

Today, El Kholy, 24, has been fixing cars for more than a decade in the village of Esna and has captured national attention - with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi hailing her as the Upper Egypt region’s first female motor mechanic.

This month, she opened her own car maintenance centre in nearby Luxor and is also helping other aspiring female mechanics enter the male-dominated trade, especially those facing social or family pressures over their career choice.

“It’s not only about achieving my career dreams but also giving a helping hand to other women who are facing social challenges to become mechanics,” El Kholy said in her office, her late father’s portrait standing on a desk behind her.

She said she had been lucky because her father, who died in 2016, had supported her since she first showed a passion for the profession at the age of 11.

“I’m sure there are many other women out there who are passionate about the job but don’t find adequate support and help,” El Kholy told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

According to the 2015 Global Gender Gap Index, Egypt ranks low in gender equity compared to other nations.

The Index, which measures disparities between men and women across countries, ranked Egypt 136th out of 145 nations and noted that only about a quarter of Egyptian women have paid jobs compared with nearly 80% of men. El Kholy has been organising training workshops for women interested in car maintenance in her hometown and in Tanta, a city north of Cairo where she used to work in a repair business.

So far, about 20 women have taken part and El Kholy said she planned to hire some of them at her new centre.

“From my training experience with men and women, I can confidently say that women are far better because they are more passionate about anything new they do,” she said.

One of El Kholy’s students, Nourhan Ahmed, 25, is already working at the car maintenance centre.

Ahmed said she had always loved cars and wanted to learn about vehicle maintenance - either for a possible job or for when she buys own car - but had never been able to find courses aimed at women.

Alongside her efforts to help other women enter the profession, El Kholy has ambitious plans for her business and hopes to open several branches in Egypt and even launch a brand that can be franchised abroad.

“This is a dream for me and I believe that I will achieve it one day,” she said.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/it-s-viral/woman-mechanic-fixes-wheels-and-stereotypes-in-egypt/story-k1IENlm0zXhtIoHW4FdWPN.html

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Loujain Al-Hathloul’s Nearly Six Years of Prison: Saudi Prince’s Strategy on Women’s Rights Is Doomed To Fail

January 5, 2021

 

Loujain Al-Hathloul

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Saudi Arabia won points by easing some of its restrictions on women, but it’s now at risk of losing them, and then some, after imprisoning the very woman whose activism led to the rollbacks.

Last week, an anti-terror court slapped Loujain al-Hathloul, one of the kingdom’s most prominent women’s rights activists, with nearly six years of prison time for endangering national security and seeking to change the country’s political system.

Her real offense was her agitation itself — in particular, talking to foreign journalists and embassies about women’s rights. She had famously called for a ban on women driving to be lifted; in 2018, it was.

Al-Hathloul “was charged, tried and convicted using counter-terrorism laws,” her sister, Lina al-Hathloul, points out. “My sister is not a terrorist, she is an activist. To be sentenced for her activism for the very reforms that MBS [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman] and the Saudi kingdom so proudly tout is the ultimate hypocrisy.”

Loujain al-Hathloul has been in pre-trial detention since 2018, where she’s endured several stretches of solitary confinement and, she alleges, has been tortured and sexually assaulted, along with other female activists.

Her case points up the tightrope MBS is trying to walk: He’s aiming to appease activists and the West by easing some of the kingdom’s repressive laws while also catering to supporters of those laws and punishing the activists. That’s bound to fail, creating martyrs out of some activists — ratcheting up pressure for more change — even as limited reforms infuriate the old guard.

The prince needs to figure out a better way to shepherd his nation into the 21st century. And do it quickly: President-elect Joe Biden has vowed not to give Saudi Arabia “a blank check” on its “disastrous” policies, including targeting female activists. Best for US-Saudi relations, and for Saudi women, if MBS moves fast.

https://nypost.com/2021/01/05/saudi-princes-strategy-on-womens-rights-is-doomed-to-fail/

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Tunisia to enlist women into the army

January 5, 2021

Tunisia is set to propose a bill which would see women conscripted into the army, the Ministry of Defence announced.

Set to be presented to the House of Representatives, the bill will include mandatory military service for both men and women in an effort to achieve further equality between the sexes.

This comes as the country faces an economic crisis and terror attacks.

All men over the age of 20 are eligible for military service in Tunisia and this obligation remains until the age of 35. Those under 20 who wish to enlist must provide permission from their parents. However there has been a reluctance among nationals to serve in the military leading officials to make the laws more flexible.

According to the 2020 population census, women outnumber men in Tunisia, with a little over 50 per cent of the population female.

The Tunisian army was classed the 11th most powerful army in the Middle East and North Africa according to Global Firepower. With neighbours Algeria and Morocco coming fourth and seventh in the ranking respectively.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210105-tunisia-to-enlist-women-into-the-army/

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Online Quranic Course for Women Underway in Iraq’s Najaf

January 06, 2021

According to quran.imamali.net, Zaman Al-Ibrahimi, head of the center, said that the course started at the beginning of the new academic year.

The registration for the course was completed in five days and the applicants’ Quranic skills and knowledge were evaluated in six days.

A total of 360 women from different parts of Iraq as well as other countries have participated in the Quranic educational program.

The participants practice Quran memorization and learn how to solve problems in the way of learning the Quran by heart.

The course is held six days a week via WhatsApp and will take two years to complete.

Quranic activities have significantly developed in Iraq since the 2003 overthrow of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

There has been a growing trend of Quranic programs such as competitions, recitation sessions and educational programs held in the country in recent years.

https://iqna.ir/en/news/3473622/online-quranic-course-for-women-underway-in-iraq%E2%80%99s-najaf

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How female politicians in Turkey's ruling party help strengthen patriarchy

Pinar Tremblay

Jan 5, 2021

People in Turkey are routinely strip searched while being taken into custody over a tweet, visiting family members in prison or simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, such as in a dormitory. This is a humiliating experience, a form of sexual harassment that usually creates too much embarrassment for survivors to speak out in public. Strip searches have increased since the 2013 Gezi protests, and parliament has been made aware of the issue multiple times. In 2018, for example, the Ministry of Justice answered the allegations of strip searches, saying, “We didn’t conduct a search. They (those in custody) stripped naked on their own.”

Over the last couple of weeks, Turkish social media has been rocked by hundreds of women speaking out on video about their own experiences with strip searches. Most of these women are hijabis. Indeed, Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, a lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), brought the matter to the public eye in mid-September after thirty college students were taken into custody in Usak province and strip searched.

Not many people seemed to care until these women organized and spoke in front of cameras about their and their children’s horrifying experiences.

In response to Gergerlioglu’s statement, Ozlem Zengin, a lawmaker from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said, “I have not seen any other lawmaker who terrorizes the parliament [as much as Gergerlioglu does].” When asked to elaborate on what she meant, Zengin said “Whenever [Gergerlioglu] speaks in parliament, he always talks about his own agenda. I do not believe there are strip searches in Turkey. It doesn’t happen.”

“And the women he talks about are pious Muslim women. Can we allow such treatment of them? My whole life is dedicated to the women’s movement. Can we tolerate one woman to be treated like this?” she added.

Zengin’s blatant denial is embedded in her emphasis on "pious" women. She refers to the fact that these women are hijabis, and the treatment of such women cannot be permitted. Zengin's sentence insinuates that all women are not equal before the law or in the eyes of law enforcement. She and other AKP figures frequently remind the public about the grievances of the headscarf ban and divide the society further as “us” (Islamists) and others. Any criticism about their income and spending is promptly shielded with the defense that these women are pious.

Women’s rights have significantly regressed in Turkey over the last two decades. We have to ask: What have the women in power — AKP’s female representatives — done about this?

Ayse Acar Basaran, an HDP deputy and spokesperson for the party’s Women's Council, told Al-Monitor, “Just being a woman, as a biological attribute, is not sufficient; the mentality about female consciousness is crucial. We need more women who are willing to be involved in the women’s movement. For example, during the budget talks at the parliament recently, I said, ‘This is a male-minded budget that ignores female identity,’ and I got opposition from other [female] deputies. It is not easy to be involved in politics. Women, if they are organized independently, can act and lead as women politicians.”

We observe Basaran’s comments frequently in Turkish politics, where female politicians in the AKP and its ultra nationalist ally Nationalist Movement Party are either invisible or in denial about women’s problems. From time to time, when there is public outrage about a women’s brutal murder, female politicians come out and express their condolences.

Eren Keskin, vice president of Turkey’s Human Rights Association and a prominent attorney, told Al-Monitor, “Since 1997, we have had 758 women asking for our help as survivors of sexual attacks. Perpetrators generally are soldiers, police and other men in uniform. None have been punished. Some cases have been taken to the ECHR and found justice there.” For each case about sexual and physical violence against women, all we hear from the AKP’s female politicians is that “they will follow the case closely.”

The AKP has 54 female lawmakers (the AKP's total share out of the 584-deputy parliament is 289); six of them have never spoken or sought to introduce a bill to the floor.

The AKP’s female deputies frequently make statements that raise eyebrows. In 2016, Sema Ramazanoglu, then family minister, held a press conference to answer questions about sexual harassment cases involving 45 minors at Ensar Schools, a religious endowment. Her statements seemed more concerned about the reputation of the endowment than the accusations. Referring to the rape incidents, she uttered, “[If it happens] only once, it should not mean anything.”

Huda Kaya, another HDP deputy, told Al-Monitor, “Patriarchy is a mindset. Despotism, arrogance really does not have a gender. A man or woman with this mindset can reflect the scariest forms of fanaticism. There are women in all aspects of life that fail to fight against patriarchy because it has permeated society like a poison.”

Remziye Tosun, an HDP lawmaker, complemented Kaya’s statement as she told Al-Monitor, “Women have to be organized. The Kurdish women’s movement is targeted because they know we have solidarity to support each other. It is not just the freedom of expression, but that of assembly and association is crucial to battle against patriarchy.”

It must be difficult for the AKP’s female members to criticize physical violence. In 2017, the AKP’s female lawmakers brutally attacked opposition parties’ female members. One of those attacked, Safak Pavey, had to be hospitalized as her prosthetic arm was removed.

Every women's day march or another women's protest against violence is met with police brutality. The AKP’s female deputies never join these marches or acknowledge women’s suffering.

The AKP was carried on the shoulders of women in the early 2000s when they campaigned vigorously door to door. However, women’s rights for AKP’s female elites — either in government or in nongovernmental organizations such as the Women and Democracy Association (KADEM) — have been stuck on the issue of headscarves. The right to wear a headscarf as a public employee has been one of the AKP’s major accomplishments, which could not have been possible without the achievements of the feminist movement in Turkey. Since then, however, it has become a shield to silence all criticism.

Ayse Cavdar, anthropologist and journalist, told Al-Monitor, “[The] AKP’s hijabi representatives try to justify all the wrong actions of the government today with their battle for the right to wear the headscarf. This behavior pattern jeopardizes not only the legitimacy of the political power they hold today, but also their own histories — of those battles for freedom of religion (which includes not only of worship, practice and teaching, but also that of dress codes), human rights and women’s rights. This leaves a bitter legacy for the future."

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2021/01/turkey-why-female-akp-lawmakers-strengthen-patriarchy.html

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Balochistan Awami Party’s Nusrat Shaheen Elected Senator Unopposed On Vacant Seat

Saleem Shahid

06 Jan 2021

QUETTA: A political wor­ker of the ruling Balochistan Awami Party (BAP), Nusrat Shaheen, was on Tuesday elected unopposed a member of the Senate in the by-election on a vacant seat of the upper house of parliament from Balochistan.

The seat had fallen vacant after the death of three-time elected senator from Balochistan on tickets of different political parties, Kalsoom Parveen. She died after getting infected by Covid-19 last month.

Ms Shaheen will enjoy the Senate membership just for 57 days as the term of this Senate seat will end on March 11.

According to the Provin­cial Election Commis­sioner, Balochis­tan, only two female candidates — Nusrat Shaheen and Rita Kumari ­— had filed their nomi-nation papers after schedule for the by-election on the vacant seat was announced.

However, Rita Kumari later withdrew her nomination papers before the polling date which was Jan 4.

The Provincial Elec­tion Commissioner, Balo­chis­tan, Mohammad Razzaq, on Tuesday announced the result of the by-election on the Senate seat.

“Ms Nusrat Shaheen of Balochistan Awami National Party (BAP) has been elected unopposed senator on the vacant seat of Senate from Balo­chistan,” the election com­­missioner anno­unced.

Nusrat Shaheen had joined the BAP last year and worked as a worker in the party. Many active party female leaders were interested in the Senate seat, but BAP president and Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan Alyani had awarded the party ticket to Ms Shaheen.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1599957/baps-nusrat-shaheen-elected-senator-unopposed-on-vacant-seat

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Egypt’s first female motor mechanic defies conservative norms

05 January 2021

Lekaa El Kholy’s father used to rub a little blackened engine oil onto her face and tell her to wear overalls when they went to the Egyptian city of Luxor to buy supplies for his car repair workshop.

It was his way of showing people his daughter was a mechanic just like him, and of confronting deep-rooted beliefs about gender roles that keep all but a few women out of traditionally male professions in socially conservative Egypt.

Today, El Kholy, 24, has been fixing cars for more than a decade in the village of Esna and has captured national attention - with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi hailing her as the Upper Egypt region’s first female motor mechanic.

This month, she opened her own car maintenance center in nearby Luxor and is also helping other aspiring female mechanics enter the male-dominated trade, especially those facing social or family pressures over their career choice.

For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.

“It’s not only about achieving my career dreams but also giving a helping hand to other women who are facing social challenges to become mechanics,” El Kholy said in her office, her late father’s portrait standing on a desk behind her.

She said she had been lucky because her father, who died in 2016, had supported her since she first showed a passion for the profession at the age of 11.

“I’m sure there are many other women out there who are passionate about the job but don’t find adequate support and help,” El Kholy told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The Index, which measures disparities between men and women across countries, ranked Egypt 136th out of 145 nations and noted that only about a quarter of Egyptian women have paid jobs compared with nearly 80 percent of men. El Kholy has been organizing training workshops for women interested in car maintenance in her hometown and in Tanta, a city north of Cairo where she used to work in a repair business.

So far, about 20 women have taken part and El Kholy said she planned to hire some of them at her new center.

“From my training experience with men and women, I can confidently say that women are far better because they are more passionate about anything new they do,” she said.

One of El Kholy’s students, Nourhan Ahmed, 25, is already working at the car maintenance center.

Ahmed said she had always loved cars and wanted to learn about vehicle maintenance - either for a possible job or for when she buys own car - but had never been able to find courses aimed at women.

Alongside her efforts to help other women enter the profession, El Kholy has ambitious plans for her business and hopes to open several branches in Egypt and even launch a brand that can be franchised abroad.

“This is a dream for me and I believe that I will achieve it one day,” she said.

https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2021/01/05/Egypt-s-first-female-motor-mechanic-defies-conservative-norms

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Pakistan’s Entertainment Industry Is Finally Confronting Its Sexual Harassment Problem

By Neha Maqsood

Jan 6, 2021

The blurring of personal boundaries has long been accepted as an integral part of art, but cases like Meesha Shafi’s and others are challenging that perception.

It goes without saying that acting is an inherently odd profession. You are put in a room with a group of people you’ve never met before but are now expected to be completely vulnerable with. Actors, writers, directors, and producers face a quiet responsibility to nurture an intimate working relationship to allow for greater creative breakthrough. Artists also spend a large proportion of their time separated from the outside world. These blurred personal boundaries enable the perpetuation of the existing systems of exploitation within the acting industry.

Ahmed Majeed Agloria, a Pakistani method artist who trained at Lee Strasberg, explains how the notion of a set or stage becoming an “alternate reality or another dimension without consequences leads to the blurring of lines, a phenomenon particularly taken advantage of in patriarchal countries like India or Pakistan.”

When I was 17, I was cast in a play in Karachi at the Arts Council. During one of our night shows, I had fumbled my stage direction and exited the stage from where I wasn’t supposed to. As I quickly shuffled off, the director grabbed a chunk of my hair and yanked me back roughly. Unable to express nor understand what had just happened, I went straight home after the show finished and wept.

For many other Pakistani-Muslim women, choosing to step into the media industry also means that they become subjects that viewers can simultaneously objectify and impose questions of morality upon. This makes it further complicated for these women to find redressal.

Shahana Jan, a Pakistani-American actor and content creator, spoke about how even when certain advances and moments made her feel uncomfortable, she’d “often have to shrug it off and act like it didn’t happen.”

“In my mind, I would hear people say, ‘Well, she’s in the media – why’d she put herself in that position in the first place?’”

The burden of maintaining a professional and cordial working relationship thus falls onto the women. A female makeup artist who wished to remain anonymous revealed the measures she takes to protect herself within the industry – from avoiding being “overfriendly” to never giving out her number and refusing to mingle with the crew after rehearsals – the latter being a space where she believes things become murky.

Actress Hina Altaf recently spoke out about how closeness on film sets is exploited. On the talk show, To Be Honest, she said her co-star Faisal Rehman would use intimate scenes to become “too romantic” with her. “For instance, if you hold a finger in a scene, this man will just grab your arm.”

Jan explains how cultures that enable such behavior occur are created at the top. “Many producers were involved in creating an environment that wasn’t just predatory and unsafe for young women but also fostered traits of toxic masculinity in young men – validating certain behaviours to make us feel that this was okay and that if we said anything, we were overreacting.”

Unfortunately, very few film, theatre, advertisement studios, and production houses within Pakistan have an operational Human Resource department or a governing body equipped to handle misconduct allegations. Due to the immense ramifications of filing misconduct allegations – losing out on critical job opportunities or getting boycotted by the industry – women are extremely unlikely to report their harassers. And if they do come forward with their stories, they find themselves inadvertently becoming centres of speculation, upon whom moral investigations are conducted. Oftentimes, to sustain one’s livelihood and pursue the work one’s passionate about, many actors are forced to collaborate with their abusers and harassers.

In October 2017, the #MeToo movement that called out the widespread gender discrimination and sexual harassment within the Hollywood entertainment industry also made its way to Pakistan. It provided a platform for media artists to come forward with their stories. Unfortunately, the stories of those who worked behind the camera – production assistants, makeup artists, grips – were not brought to the forefront despite the crew forming perhaps the most essential part of any production.

The most prominent of these stories was that of singer Meesha Shafi, who alleged sexual harassment against fellow singer Ali Zafar. Following her statement, a handful of Pakistani women came forward sharing similar incidents of Zafar’s inappropriate behavior. However, as Shafi went public with her claim, she faced immense backlash and was shamed incessantly on social media. It worked to only further highlight the misogynistic attitudes still ubiquitous among the masses and the social and emotional cost of coming forward with such statements.

Sajeer Shaikh, an editor at the digital publication, Mangobaaz, explained that terms like “harassment and sexual assault are new to our (Pakistan’s) vocabulary which makes it difficult to articulate what’s happening.” Unfortunately, in Pakistan where tradition and honour heavily prevail, many continue to question the veracity of sexual harassment allegations.

During productions, the cast and crew are thrown together and told that they’re one big happy family and that everything goes. But perhaps that is a flawed way of looking at things. Roles, job descriptions, and boundaries should be more clearly defined – the job of the director should remain principally to direct and the actor to deliver accordingly. Those overseeing the production, from casting directors and producers to stage managers and financiers, must ensure greater accountability and consequences for misdemeanour on set. Before any production is given the green light, harassment policies must be outlined to the entire crew and made clear that such behaviour would not be tolerated in order to ensure that every person feels protected. 

Acting is a fabulous profession that manages to stop the flurry of the world around you, albeit for a minute. But in order to preserve that wondrous and surreal feeling more often for female actors, the dynamics and structures within the world of acting need to be thoroughly reformed.

Neha Maqsood is a Pakistani multimedia journalist whose writing on race-relations, global feminism, and South Asian culture has been published in Metro UK, Foreign Policy, Al Jazeera, Business Insider, Buzzfeed India, Byline Times, and other places. Her debut poetry book, Vulnerability, was awarded the 2019-2020 Hellebore Poetry Scholarship Award and will be published by Hellebore Press in 2021. You can follow her online @ItsNehaMaqsood.

https://theswaddle.com/pakistans-entertainment-industry-is-finally-confronting-its-sexual-harassment-problem/

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Health ministry makes an all out effort to get women in the UAE to stay fit

January 06, 2021 11:47

Suchitra Bajpai Chaudhary

Dubai: The Ministry of Health and Prevention, MoHAP, has launched its public outreach campaign titled ‘Together we Move” to promote physical activity among women from all ages, by equipping them with the necessary skills and knowledge and helping them adopt healthy lifestyles to be protected from different diseases and to enhance their mental well-being and positive energy.

The two-month campaign is in line with the UAE Government’s Community Design Initiative for the Quality of Life and MoHAP’s Strategic Framework for Happiness and Wellbeing initiative, which was launched during the Innovation month in 2019.

The campaign includes direct interviews with social media influencers, awareness-raising videos and posters, outdoor ads in Sharjah, Global Village and City Walk in Dubai, indoor mall ads (Dubai Mall, Mirdif City Centre, the Arabian Centre, Ajman City Centre, Fujairah City Centre, and Bawabat al Sharq Mall in Abu Dhabi, in addition to two-week mobile vehicle ads in Ajman, Ras Al-Khaimah, Umm Al-Quwain, and Fujairah.

The health ministry has also expanded the scope of the campaign by coordinating with the most popular radio and TV shows to cover the event for a month through interviews, commercial breaks, and promoting the campaign objectives. This is in addition to preparing special communication messages and appropriate media content for the various segments of the customers of the ministry’s partners, each according to their interests, besides the collaboration with global brands, women’s clubs, beauty centres, food outlets, and others.

Strengthening society health

Dr Hussein Abdel Rahman Al Rand, Undersecretary of the health ministry’s health assistant sector, health centres and clinics, said, “The campaign aims to encourage women in general and Emirati women, in particular, to engage in physical activity on a daily basis.”

Dr Al Rand added: “This comes as part of health ministry’s ongoing awareness-raising campaigns and initiatives to highlight the importance of regular exercise and healthy lifestyles. It also falls within the ‘Initiative to Raise Awareness About Healthy Lifestyle’ and the National Agenda 2021 to prevent chronic diseases such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes and blood pressure and to improve the outcomes of the national health indicators.”

AlRand pointed to the national initiative to promote awareness of healthy lifestyles, which involves the participation of communities and civil society institutions in health promotion programs in cooperation with government and private sector partners, stating that the initiative aims to raise awareness of healthy lifestyles that help build community capabilities, create a supportive environment for health, and prevent the prevalence of non-communicable diseases through physical activity and healthy food.

“The campaign messages were designed based on the findings of the community design study and the use of specific media strategies to help reach out to target groups,” he concluded.

Reducing risk of heart attacks

Dr Fadila Mohamed Sherif, director of health ministry’s Health Education and Promotion Department, said, “When engaging in regular physical exercise, women’s energy will be boosted, the risk of heart attacks will be reduced, and their productive capacity will be improved. Besides, the campaign aims to promote mental health, reducing absenteeism from the workplace or the school, and reduce health care expenditures.”

She noted that the campaign objectives were built on the outcomes of panel discussions with women of various society segments, explaining that the campaign will educate women on how to do at least 150 minutes of physical activity throughout the week in a simple and practical way, according to the World Health Organisation’s recommendations.

https://gulfnews.com/uae/health/health-ministry-makes-an-all-out-effort-to-get-women-in-the-uae-to-stay-fit-1.76282207

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URL:  https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/lekaa-el-kholy-woman-mechanic/d/123998

 

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