10 Years of TAKREEM

Last Sunday, I sat in front of my television, and for the first time, I watched a TAKREEM ceremony like any other spectator.

No backstage, no buzzing crowd, no TAKREEM community coming together as it had for 9 consecutive years. And it hit me: ten years, more than 100 laureates. Beyond the numbers and words, I’ve read on content material for the past year… I can say without a doubt that this 10th edition was the hardest to bring to life. But it was also the one that kept reminding day in and day out of how important the work we do actually is.

I embarked on this journey more than a decade ago with the aim to honor the numerous individuals who, behind the scene, are continuously battling to make sense of the chaos that comes with being Arab, whether you still live in the region or have decided to settle away from this ever-shifting, never-resting part of the world.

I wanted to offer the youth a wider spectrum and variety of role models, beyond the politicians, singers, and occasional athletes they had grown accustomed to seeing on TV and embodying our idea of success. I wanted them to know that if they set their mind on it and worked hard for it, they could excel in any field from science and tech to business, entrepreneurship, art, and culture as well as sustainable development.

But there was also another, the more complex objective at stake, beyond acknowledging these great minds and granting them a platform to inspire the Arab youth. TAKREEM was our way to counter the narrative that had been mainstreamed by Western media, which only focused on one side of the multifaceted Arab story. We wanted to share the other side of our story; one that is not as sufficiently portrayed in mainstream media. It is slowly shaping the future, integrating nature and technology, modernity and tradition, women and men, the disabled and the healthy, as well as locals and the diaspora.

Those change-makers are also bridge makers who oftentimes define what it means to be the Other. They stand out, make loud and bold choices, and therefore make us proud.

For ten years, we went from one Arab capital to another, gathering Arabs under new ideas, forging links between people that would’ve never met otherwise, and showing the world what being Arab truly means for most of us.

As I sat in front of my tv last Sunday, I remembered how it all started and why I would still do it for another ten years and more.