Maria Al-Masani
AGE: 25 | HEIGHT: 5'7" | HOMETOWN: OTTAWA, ON
Maria Al-Masani is CEO of her firm, Al-Masani Consulting- Visionary PR, which she founded at age 24. She wants to go back and complete a doctorate in conflict mediation. She holds a degree with honours from the prestigious Kroger School, Carleton University in economic development and public policy.
She was born in the USSR, but escaped the iron curtain. She grew up in Yemen, lived through the civil war where her house was narrowly missed by the bomb that killed her neighbours. Her mother is Russian, father is Yemeni. She moved to Canada alone at age 19, where she lives in exile (her mother joined her at age 20). Maria speaks English, Russian, Arabic and French.
Maria is branding director of Canadian PR Society, Ottawa. She booked Robert Fisk, “international correspondent of our generation,” on CBC. She aspires to change the brand and raise the profile of PR in Ottawa. Her press releases have appeared in stories in CBC, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail Independent (U.K.), MacLeans, Hill Times, etc.
Maria managed media for the Yemenia plane crash, organized press conferences for the Yemeni foreign affairs minister. She also works to promote Canadian fashion industry to policy-makers to create jobs. Her Parliament Hill press conferences: Fashion Cures A La Mode, Amnesty International, Omar Khadr’s lawyer, Abousfian Abdelrazik’s lawyers, etc. She worked for Cambridge University Advance Research Unit, Parliament, and was a political campaign manager for Ottawa- Centre.
Maria is a published poet, artist, and writes novels. In her spare time, she volunteers and works pro-bono, from founding MacDonald-Cartier Institute of International Affairs, to Famous Five [women] Ottawa, to alternative-dispute-resolution [ADR] mediation with G-4 and on Victoria Island, to promoting humanitarian work & human rights with Amnesty and MSF. Her main project, as VP External of Madbakh Women International, is raising awareness, coordinating aid, for the Borama Fistula Hospital, whose founder’s work was featured on Oprah. www.madbakh-women-international.com
Pre-teen girls see the beautiful as role models, regardless of second-wave feminist Kantian ideas. As a third wave feminist, Al-Masani sees the importance of glamour and uses it to empower young women. She founded the Empowerment of Women of Colour in Film Awards, in conjunction with TIFF. She believes that in a capitalist free-market economy, beauty contests are our best chance to create role models for girls in their formative years.
Maria works to empower women and bring peace to Somalia and the Middle East through values based-ADR+ and humanitarian work. Today her dream is to expand the Fistula Hospital and microfinance program’s capacity from 215 to 700 women. Tomorrow her dream will be to empower the most vulnerable – third world young women-- because when you empower a woman, you empower an entire family!
Questionnaire
Are you currently a student? No
If yes, where?
Area of study: Public Affairs and Policy Management specializing in Economic Development. Before that, Mercyhurst College Institute of Intelligence Studies, specializing in intelligence and national security.
Are you currently employed? Yes
If yes, what is your occupation? Public Relations
Have you completed secondary school?
If yes, where? Mercyhurst Preparatory School, Erie, P.A. USA
Have you completed university/college?
If yes, where? Arthur Kroeger School, Carleton University
Have you completed any technical/professional school?
If yes, where? Algonquin College
What subject? Public Relations
Languages spoken Fluently (please include your native language if English is not your native language)
Native languages: Arabic, Russian. Other languages: French, English
List any special training you have had (music, art, drama, dance, etc).
Ballet, belly dance (Danse Orientale) –classical, dramatic, popular Egyptian style (baladi), Lebanese Debake (dance), Kurdish Debake (dance), Tehrani (dance), Salsa, Merengue, Bachatta, painting (oil, acrylic, water colour, collage, pastel, etc., and on still lives), piano (but ages ago),
In what sports, if any, have you participated and how long have you participated in each sport?
Track and field: 100 meter, 200 meter, 400 meter. Long jump. Marathon running. 7 years.
Hockey (roller hockey in the deserts of Arabia): 10 years.
Please list any schools and universities (public/private/graduate/trade or technical) you have or are attending, as well as the area of study, graduation date and any degree or certification you received.
Carleton university, BA Honours, Public Affairs and Policy Management. I am taking courses in Public Relations, towards a certificate, but am taking a break for one semester.
What charity/charities have you supported with your time and/or resources over past two years?
Amnesty International. (Organized two press conferences for them on parliament hill, one with Omar Khadr and Abousoufian Abdelrazik's lawyers, and one with Monia Mazigh (Arar’s wife) and Sophie Harkat. Main work: External relations director for Madbakh women international.
Red Cross (Help with the forgotten conflicts group). Doctors Without Borders (working on giving them access to Somalia).
Mainly, I am working as the now VP external for Madbakh Women International, a new charity based on Mabadkh Women’s Initiative (Toronto, Established 1992).
We are working on expanding a women’s fistula hospital. You may have heard of the stories from Oprah and Half the Sky. But these stories occurred before the hospital was established. Now all fistula cases in Somalia are treated there and women are brought by World Vision. I volunteered to build a website for them, do a press conference on the Hill, a dinner with Ignatieff and possibly Harper as a fundraiser, organize a fundraiser with K’naan and get it into Oprah, New York Times and international media as Dr. Qaw’s stories told through Edna Adnan have already reached there. It is the other half of the story, and as a media relations profession, this is fun pro-bono work.
I volunteer with my professional association, the Canadian Public Relations Society, and I am the Branding Director. I am also the only student member on the board of directors, as I graduated last year and am studying.
I am devoting some time to starting the MacDonald-Cartier Institute of International Affairs. Due to the changing nature of the web, traditional media are unable to keep up and are in financial distress, resulting in closing foreign bureaus and firing journalists. The first to be fired are foreign correspondents, and the rest do the work of several people. This crisis in traditional results in terrible highly distorted coverage, when most Canadians and Americans receive their news from television. It results in lack of aid to the most desperately needed, bad foreign policy decisions that hurt Canada and the most vulnerable in the world. Meanwhile up to 80% of news-stories in Canada originate from public relations people.
I am working with former ambassadors, journalists, academics, members of parliament and other notable Canadians to found an institute to get journalists and parliamentarians improved access to the third world so that lives can be saved. For example, I receive emails from contacts from the World Health Organization that a certain hospital desperately needs funds. Journalists and parliamentarians want to know what the WHO is doing but don’t have access to my colleague. My colleague send me the information on the doctors on the ground, and I forwarded it to my contacts in CBC. I spend way too much time doing this. There is always some crisis, some forgotten conflict, be it Gaza or Congo where the hospital even runs out of anaesthesia and operates without it (ouch)! Having an institute will put hospitals in crisis on television faster.
What would be your "dream job" in life?
I want Tony Blair`s job, envoy for the Middle East Peace Process. To get there:
Perhaps Humanitarian Coalition coordinator or their media relations.
My dream job is to increase my revenue stream, which would enable me hire more employees so I can spend more time building hospitals. Building hospitals in the third world is addictive. Ever hour you put in, you see how many lives can be saved with what you are doing.
I am a CEO with my own small PR firm, that does a lot of work with NGOs, embassies and many other clients that I find fulfilling, and of course the usual corporate clients. Expanding that, and also being able to help NGOs get the word out on forgotten food shortages, neglected hospitals, etc. would be amazing. I specialize in conflict-ridden countries, but I also work with the beleaguered Canadian fashion industry that needs a boost and it would create more jobs during this recession. Increasing revenue and contracts would make it an ideal job, as I love putting unusual human rights and humanitarian stories in the media. I am working on getting Yemen more aid to for development and combating terrorism.
Name one person, other than your parents, who has had the most influence on your life? Why?
Someone I can name: my uncle, Dr. Abdelaziz Al-Saqqaf, founder of Yemen Times, Yemen’s most read newspaper. Every time there was a human rights violation, it made front page. He was beaten, tortured and intimidated. He freed over 1000 political prisoners. In 1995, he won the International Freedom of Press Award, which he received in Washington. In 1998, he was assassinated for speaking up about human rights. He made me lose my fear of death and realize that a short life creating a better world for others is better than a long life standing by and doing nothing as one witnesses atrocities.
The person who has had the most influence on me can not be named. It’s a good friend and a medical doctor who served in South Africa as a bush doctor during the war. We worked together on a project sending aid to a conflict zone, and it saved so many lives. My life changed then.
Since then we helped each other on several projects from saving mother’s lives to human rights. Human rights and humanitarian issues concerned me, but made me always feel disempowered and somewhat disengaged before then. He was supportive of my endeavours and worked hard to give me hope in my darkest hours.
He has an impressive record when it comes to humanitarian and human rights which inspires me, as well as a vibrant intellect that is equally inspiring. Working with him inspired me to go into public relations to know how to get the story out. It inspired me to work on giving a voice to the voiceless and take on the projects I have taken on today.
Before, I was working on ant’s scale, but he encouraged me to think in terms of multi-million dollar aid projects, to get hospitals the equipment they need in conflict-ridden and other desperate areas. I can’t specify too much about his life or I give the identity away. He did incredible humanitarian work in conflict zones who returned to Ottawa to make aid coordination more effective. He managed to enact provisions that today save hundreds of lives. He is one of this world’s unsung heroes who deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. He is not only a great example of what any human being should aspire to, but very encouraging of another’s aspirations and encouraged me at my moments of greatest despair. I overcame the despair to become the person I am today.
Who I am today and will be tomorrow, I am because of him.
What is the proudest personal accomplishment (other than being in this or any other beauty pageant competition)
Catching the Tunisian government censoring the internet when they held the world information summit, but then my actions resulting in rendering most of the country without police. So it would have to be sending millions of dollars worth of medicine to Gaza during the conflict. Tunisia: I was working as a research assistant for Cambridge University Advanced Research unit, my boss was off in Jordan and his colleagues in Harvard were giving a presentation on behalf of us at World Information Summit. I reviewed the research in Arabic again and alerted Derek (Harvard) in Tunisia, that Tunis was doing not just internet censorship of porn and gambling as they thought, but had enacted a specific software for content censorship of the very media outlets the state said they uncensored and allowed to publish the print version. Two hours later, he said this, and UN delegates went from the UN room to the Tunisian media room, and sure enough they couldn’t open the websites of the papers they could open in the UN room. This resulted in the journalists exiting and starting protests, which escalated. Protests do not occur in Tunisia, but this was the first one, in the full glare of international media. The government ordered a state of emergency and brought all its police across the country to the capital to suppress the protests.
I felt proud of exposing the Tunisian government of censorship and to promote freedom of press to the world, but my actions resulted in a country temporarily without police and journalists in prison for exposing the truth. Yes I am proud to expose the truth but feel horrible about the price others pay for it and I am safe here in Canada.
What is your career ambition and what are you doing or plan to do to accomplish that goal?
My career ambition is to be one of the most prominent public relations parishioners in the humanitarian field. I am on the board of directors for my professional association and their branding director. I am negotiating contracts to expand my reach and client base. I work to expand the Borama Fistula Hospital in Somalia, get media coverage for it, funds, political support, etc.
My dream is to bring hospitals and peace to the Middle East, where I grew up, and that seems to be a pre-requisite. There seems to be a shortage of both. As for the peace, Values-based ADR+ is the only thing with a proven track record to work, and they are still using negotiating methods from Europe of the 1600s. There will only be peace in the Middle East when the powers that be realize that Israel and Palestine is NOT Europe in the 1600s! Values-based ADR originated in the Six Nations Mohawk reserve in southern Ontario, where it’s about getting everyone on the table and start the negotiations with what you have in common, and go from there.
Bringing peace to the Middle East is a dangerous enterprise, as too many have been burned both by the Palestinians and the Israelis. It takes a couple decades to position one correctly for this, and reduce civilian suffering. A Jakata proverb states, “when two elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers.” Once that conflict is over, there will be a deradicalization and a renaissance in the Middle East, where countries will be forced to deal with their much-neglected domestic problems for the first time in decades, such as lack of access to medical care for women and rural populations. Terrorist agencies will have an impossible time finding recruits and would be forced to shut down many offices. Women’s rights and the economy would be the next issues.
List any interesting or unusual jobs you may have had.
I’ll attach my resume. Define interesting, and the whole document can include them. One is to get members of parliament to bungee jump to support a women’s charity to get poor minority immigrant women in Canada not only skills training but access to micro-finance to start their own business. “The courage to go your own way.”
To get Yemen, a client of mine, attention for Yemeni National Day, I had them bring in a camel from Montreal to Ottawa. You can read about it at http://www.maria-al-masani.com/case_studies.html or archived news articles.
I was a political campaign manager in Ottawa Centre at age 23, managing a large team. My candidate’s vote more than doubled, from 6% to 13% in that riding. The next election, same party riding, results were 10%. Motivating the team, branding, preparing the candidate for debates and interviews, managing the press, managing the advertising and volunteers was fun and fascinating, as well as challenging.
List any volunteering you have done.
I volunteered all my life, so forgive me for not sending a comprehensive list. If you want a volunteer resume, I can send it to you. I was the 2nd student of the entire school at age 9 to fundraise the most for charity, and billionaires went to that school. So I got free opera tickets for Madame Butterfly for my mother and I in Yemen, very exotic. I have been hooked on opera ever since.
Highlights: I am Vice President External of Madbakh Women International, just getting their website designed right now, which is under construction, but you can take a peak: http://www.spginfotech.com/elenaye/index.html
We are working to expand the capacity of the fistula hospital from 215 patients to 700 a year and get medical equipment.
Amnesty International: I formed a working group with all NGOs that worked on the cases of Canadians detained abroad and had one press conference on Parliament Hill were even American CBS attended.
In the US, I won a minority leadership award, and was in the Who is Who book at age 19 for my charity work! In both Yemen and the US, I worked with refugees. In the US, I mainly was a translator and interpreter. Volunteered with the art museum.
I volunteered mainly with the Sana’a orphanage and blind girls school. I was a co-founder of the award winning Sana’a Community Service Club which even worked with the untouchables, the Akhdam sect.
I volunteered to teach Middle Eastern culture, and was the treasurer and president of the campus Kiwanis. We worked in soup kitchens for children, Big Brothers Big Sisters and established many partnerships. When I became president, it expanded in three months from four people to cover over 2% of the campus population.
Where is the most interesting place you have been?
Bab Al-Mandab, in Yemen, where you can see the horn of Africa from across the water, and birds from around the world migrate there. My friends and I spotted a Siberian thrush, which made a world record at the time for most Northern bird spotted South. I was in Rio, Brazil for Carnival, which was fascinating. One of these two would top it.
What makes you unique and different from the other contestants?
I am the most beautiful one, of course--- joking. I probably have survived more near death experiences than anyone else. Maybe that my hobbies now include bungee jumping and scuba diving.
In all seriousness, jokes aside, it is probably expertise, intelligence and leadership in humanitarian and human rights issues. I have produced the results time and time again.
Many want world peace, but I have the skills to make it happen, one hospital, one negotiating table at a time. With Harvard business school events, mainly with alumni, I was often reluctantly appointed as group leader.
What is your philosophy of/in life?
G-d is Love. I am a Sufi. Everything emanates from Love, creation. Hell is the absence of Love. That is what war is like, and you can feel it in your bones. Marcel Elliade`s concept of breaks in space and time in scared space is relevant here as is the inverse. Happiness comes from creating, from loving. I always ask myself, how can I do something more lovingly.
``All we have is each other``- Tolstoy. All we have is our common humanity.
``You taught me that tears are the person, and person without tears is but a shadow of a person.`` -Nizar Qabbani. Compassion and feeling are essential to live life to its fullest. Love is the greatest of wisdom. Not Eros, or sexual love, but Agape and Philadelphi love.
My other philosophy, growing up in mountains were the first roads were build in the 1960s, where my father saw medicine for the first time as a teenager, was this:
“Justice is Just us.” Our world is what we create it to be. So the next is “stop complaining and start contributing”, my uncle’s favourite phrase. Instead of being angry at the affairs of the world, I go and do something about it. If there is a problem in Somalia, it won’t fix itself. I’ll have to go fix it or no one else will. If there is not enough of a fashion industry in Ottawa, I met with industry executives and am making it happen right now! If Canadian designers are suffering, and the top designer, Marie St. Pierre, hasn’t been in a Canadian fashion magazine for two decades of her career, something needs to be done. If something needs to be done, if I won’t do it, it won’t get done.
The second rule to this is delegation and skilful team-building. A good team makes a monumental task small and easy to do. Its important who you have on your team and that they get along, do the work, etc.
Finally, the first rule of Public Relations, of the Canadian Public Relations Society:
Always tell the truth. It will come out sooner or later, whether you like it or not, whether you are Joseph Stalin in the USSR or not. If it came first from any other mouth than yours, it will be hard to salvage your reputation. It is easier to manage the truth than lies. Honesty and altruism has always been my brand.
What do you hope to be doing in 10 years?
Expanding hospitals, medical exchange programmes around the world. Maybe rescue 5 hospitals. I hope for financial stability, and I have listened to countless Kiwasaki and Trump tapes and read so many of their books. Think big or go home. So by then, I hope to have had a real-estate license, and enough rental properties that I have financial freedom: I don’t have to work. Hence, I can devote my self fully to charity activities.
My MacDonald-Cartier Institute for International Affairs that I am founding would be one of the première centers in the world for media and politicians to receive their information, and for the top academics and practitioners to give their information.
I would have convinced Harvard feminists that beauty pageants are the best ways to reach and influence young women. If I didn’t watch Miss Lebanon, I wouldn’t have had the idea that I needed a PhD when I grew up to look cool. If it is not Miss Universe, then the Paris Hiltons and Lindsey Lohans of the world will influence you women.
I would have built enough credibility in Geneva, Washington, Tel Aviv, Gaza and Ramallah to be put on the track for UN envoy. I will one on the most respected and well known PR specialists and have saved many lives. I hope to be married by then.
Is there anything you would like to tell us about yourself? Something unique that has happened to you? Some interesting thing about you?
I am a CEO by profession and have my own company, but I want to go back to grad-school.
I worked for the parliament of Canada. I had a cat named George Bush. One of my firm’s clients is the Canadian fashion industry, which I am trying to connect to buyers with a Brand Canada strategy. We are having a press conference on the Hill and a professional runway show at an ambassador’s residence.
I also developed the Empowerment of Women of Colour in Film Awards in conjunction to the Toronto Film Festival. Jean Augustine was there and the mayor and Ignatieff send representatives.
I paint with acrylics in my spare time. I sing opera in the shower to the chagrin of my neighbours. I am writing another novel, this time on a matriarchal Islamic society near my village, and its semi-autobiographical.
I organized a press conference on Parliament Hill with Maher Arar`s wife. Harper attended one of the functions I was involved in co-organizing. I was the secretary of my community association while I was still in university!
I went to both Koran school and Catholic school.
I love to dance. I have almost completely overcome post-traumatic stress disorder, and grew in a conflict-ridden area where there are three times as many guns as people. I also could shoot a rifle at age ten better than either of my parents, who were lieutenants in the army. I can speak about the important of helping war veterans with PTSD, as I know what they are going through, what their families are going through—but also that there is hope, and healing is possible.
I am a published poet.
I believe that Hegel and Heidegger are silly, as is post-modern art, but I’ll leave it at this as I can go on forever when discussing philosophy.
I wrote my thesis on Microfinance in Warzones: Haiti, Eritrea, West Bank and Gaza.
I was a research assistant in over six years, working in four languages.
source: (Thank you and credits to
http://www.beautiesofcanada.com/
and all sources for the information and pictures)
