Queen Rania of Jordan
Queen Rania of Jordan
Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordanis the Queen consort of Jordan. Since marrying the now King of Jordan, Abdullah bin al-Hussein, she has become known for her advocacy work related to education, health, community empowerment, youth, cross-cultural dialogue, and micro-finance. She is also an avid user of social media and she maintains pages on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. She has two daughters and two sons and has been given various decorations by governments...
NationalityJordanian
ProfessionRoyalty
Date of Birth31 August 1970
CountryJordan
Children who have an education grow up to lead healthier lives - earn higher income, take better care of their families, contribute to their economies.
It's about using social media for social change: creating a community of advocates who can use their voices on behalf of the voiceless, or leverage their talents, skills, knowledge, and resources to put more children into classrooms, or pressure their elected representatives to get global education top of the agenda.
I work in areas related to child protection and family safety, women's empowerment, the creation of opportunities for youth, and culture and tourism. Daunting? Yes. Impossible? No. In fact, such challenges energize me.
I believe that if we want our children to understand the world beyond their classroom, we must bring the world into their classroom.
A woman caring for her children; a woman striving to excel in the private sector; a woman partnering with her neighbors to make their street safer; a woman running for office to improve her country - they all have something to offer, and the more our societies empower women, the more we receive in return.
Children keep us in check. Their laughter prevents our hearts from hardening. Their dreams ensure we never lose our drive to make ours a better world. They are the greatest disciplinarians known to mankind.
Eighty percent of my life is normal like any other mother. I worry about my children, if they're doing all right. I worry that my husband is doing well. The 20 percent is just the queen aspect that factors in. But for me, it's life as usual, and it's just taking care of my family.
The average Jordanian has much in common with the average American in terms of the values that we share, the fact that we all value the family unit, our work ethic.
Often times, we think of girls as soft and vulnerable. And we don't really think of them as possibly being the solutions to some of the world's toughest problems, but they really are.
As a child I sometimes used to travel to the West Bank to visit my family, so I know what the checkpoints felt like. I knew what it was like to live under occupation.
Tweeting is a very personal form of expression. Who else could talk about my son refusing to wear a suit to meet the Pope, my husband flying a helicopter, or take a twitpic from our home?
The United States was an innocent victim after September 11. It had never attacked or occupied Afghanistan. So therefore it had no choice but to go after the aggressors.
I feel that we don't have the luxury of asking whether or not the Palestinians and Israelis can achieve peace. I think we have to just ask the question of when and how.
Perhaps if we all subscribed to the African concept of Ubuntu - that we all become people through other people, and that we cannot be fully human alone, we could learn a lot. There'd be less hatred and more harmony.