ABU DHABI // Mother-of-three Hanan Debwania splits her attention between her three young sons and her homeland of Palestine.
Each year she travels on charity missions to Ramallah, the city in which she grew up before moving to the US, and later the UAE.
Her project was inspired by a new-found talent for filmmaking and photography, developed since she graduated a year ago from the New York Film Academy in Abu Dhabi.
Mrs Debwania took 30 digital cameras to teenagers in refugee camps around Bethlehem last month, running summer camps for children and teenagers.
The project aimed to inspire a sense of identity among the youths she said were shunned by both Israel and their own country, seen as second-class citizens in a town not their own.
"Because of technology and television, everybody wants to have a camera. They want to take pictures of things they see," she said.
The teenagers were given two options: create a film lasting between three and five minutes about local food, or focus on 1948 - the year of the Nakba when Israel forced out much of its Palestinian population.
"Most of them chose 1948," she said. "If they had someone in the family or friends who remembered 1948, they had to get them to talk about it. Most went to their grandparents."
She said the project gave the teenagers a sense of identity. "They know they don't belong in the camps," she said. "They know the old village names they are from, even though they're not on the map any more."
Mrs Debwania plans to go back this year to remake the films with professional equipment.
For the photography, the themes were friendship, refugee camps and home. "I'm going to choose 30 of these and display them in September," she said, with the money from their sales going straight back to the teenagers whose work is sold.
It is a positive exercise, she said. "There are no jobs for these kids and nothing for them to do, so this keeps them out of trouble. It gives them a way to see what's around them and reflect on their life."
Ammar Kurdi, a Palestinian businessman who was born in Nablus but has lived in Abu Dhabi since 1995, donated 10 of the cameras.
"I believe that everyone should have a dream, and our mission is to help get this dream to become a reality," he said. "This project helps the young guys who participated in the camp to test how to achieve the goal and develop a constructive hobby with photography."
The Mohammed bin Rashid Humanitarian Foundation donated Dh40,000 towards the four summer camps for children aged five and older. It was the organisation's second donation to one of Mrs Debwania's projects. Last year, it gave Dh60,000 for Eid gifts for 200 children at a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan.
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How do Sim card scams work?
Sim swap frauds are a form of identity theft.
They involve criminals conning mobile phone operators into issuing them with replacement Sim cards by claiming to be the victim, often pretending their phone has been lost or stolen in order to secure a new Sim.
They use the victim's personal details - obtained through criminal methods - to convince such companies of their identity.
The criminal can then access any online service that requires security codes to be sent to a user's mobile phone, such as banking services.
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Ziina users can donate to relief efforts in Beirut
Ziina users will be able to use the app to help relief efforts in Beirut, which has been left reeling after an August blast caused an estimated $15 billion in damage and left thousands homeless. Ziina has partnered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to raise money for the Lebanese capital, co-founder Faisal Toukan says. “As of October 1, the UNHCR has the first certified badge on Ziina and is automatically part of user's top friends' list during this campaign. Users can now donate any amount to the Beirut relief with two clicks. The money raised will go towards rebuilding houses for the families that were impacted by the explosion.”
What are the GCSE grade equivalents?
- Grade 9 = above an A*
- Grade 8 = between grades A* and A
- Grade 7 = grade A
- Grade 6 = just above a grade B
- Grade 5 = between grades B and C
- Grade 4 = grade C
- Grade 3 = between grades D and E
- Grade 2 = between grades E and F
- Grade 1 = between grades F and G
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Uefa Champions League last-16, second leg:
Real Madrid 1 (Asensio 70'), Ajax 4 (Ziyech 7', Neres 18', Tadic 62', Schone 72')
Ajax win 5-3 on aggregate
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5