NAMA and Top Brazilian Entities in Detailed Discussions
on Women’s Advancement

The UAE-based organisation for women’s development, NAMA Women Advancement Establishment (NAMA), has been in discussions with leading government departments, academic institutions and businesses in São Paulo, Brazil, to explore possible avenues of collaboration and expertise sharing to benefit young students, female entrepreneurs and businesswomen in both countries. 

This was NAMA’s first large-scale networking and exchange mission to Brazil along with its three affiliates, the Sharjah Business Women Council (SBWC), Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council (Irthi), and its education and capacity building arm, the Badiri Education and Development Academy (Badiri). 

Through these international missions, NAMA seeks to globalise its successful experiences in women’s advancement, and open new doors of cooperation with like-minded organisations worldwide. 

NAMA’s delegation was represented by HE Reem BinKaram, Director of NAMA; Sheikha Hind Bint Majid Al Qassimi, Acting Chairperson of SBWC; Erum Mazher Alvie, Senior Advisor, The Executive Office of Her Highness Sheikha Jawaher bint Mohammed Al Qasimi (HHEO) and NAMA Executive Board member; Nada Al Lawati, NAMA Executive Board Member and Board Member of SBWC; and Maryam Rashid Bin Al Sheikh, Manager of Membership and Services at SBWC. 

They met Ana Paula Fava, Head of the Special Advisory for International Affairs the State of São Paulo, to discuss potential cooperation between the UAE and Brazil to support women in business and trade, studying joint plans and mechanisms to serve women's issues, and examining women's economic empowerment and capacity building. 

Fava leads matchmaking efforts between the state’s 108 councils and potential international partners, with a focus on supporting and furthering the United Nation’s 2030 SDG agenda. She said: “The UAE and Sharjah are renowned globally for their welfare practices, especially for women and children, and are an example of the equal opportunities model. Through our discussions, we have identified similar areas of interest in women’s advancement, child welfare and education, and will be working closely to develop these areas in both countries and further UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.”   

NAMA also visited Badiri’s partners FazInova, a leading Brazil-based online education portal that supported in the developed of Badiri E-Academy, to discuss how the two entities can collaborate further to offer aspiring and current entrepreneurs effective tools to support their ideas and run profitable enterprises. 

SBWC held a meeting with the President of the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, Rubens Hannun, to explore the possibility of establishing a similar body in Sharjah dedicated exclusively to promoting women’s businesses, which will be the first-of-its-kind in the region. 

Hannun said: “The Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce has been dedicated to promoting economic, cultural and tourist exchange between Arabs and Brazilians since 1952. We have been playing with the idea of setting up an office in Sharjah for quite some time; given the emirate is a powerhouse of economic activity in the Gulf region. SBWC’s visit has been monumental for us as we have been looking for a local partner to execute our idea and given that the Council has been furthering women’s business and professional interests in the UAE for over 17 years, we couldn’t have chosen a better partner.” 

SBWC and Irthi had meeting with representatives of Centro Universitario Belas Artes de Sao Paulo – one of the oldest and most influential school of arts and design in Brazil. The idea of the meeting was to gather new experiences and expertise for artists, designers and traditional craftswomen the two entities support in the UAE, from a university that has been driving Brazil’s creative economy by mixing top academic training with a unique cultural experience to support the development of its students as artists, designers and researchers. 

They also held a series of networking meetings and explore areas of cooperation with Brazilian organisations who share NAMA’s and its affiliates’ vision and objectives towards developing women’s capacities strategically and sustainably.

These included ArteSol, a non-profit organisation, which has been investing in the valuing and promoting of traditional Brazilian handcrafts; Abest (the Brazilian Association of Fashion Designers), dedicated to fostering the development of Brazilian brands with international reach and tapping into business opportunities in Brazil and abroad; and Rede Asta, founded by social entrepreneurs, Alice Freitas and Rachel Aung in 2005 to elevate the status of Brazilian handicrafts by empowering the artisans who practice them. 

Another meeting constituted a discussion with the Campana Brothers, known for their world-famous furniture designs made from recycled materials, to explore ways to incorporate their reinvention and transformation skills into creative collaborations with Irthi’s Bidwa artisans.

These meetings also facilitated the first-ever skills exchange between Brazil’s expert lace and bamboo artisans with female practitioners of the traditional Emirati craft of Talli embroidery. Brazilian lace maker, Thais Avelar Guerra, and bamboo crafts expert, Gabriel Fernandes dos Santos from Instituto Botucatu University took a close look at the traditional UAE crafts being practiced by Irthi’s Bidwa artisans to identify similarities and discussed ways to share techniques to refine both countries’ crafts innovatively. 

Shedding light on these unprecedented efforts by the two countries to collaborate in projects that will promote economic, social, cultural and environmental sustainability of communities of businesswomen and female entrepreneurs, Reem BinKaram said: “NAMA has led visits and trade missions to many countries around the world, but the Brazil visit has been one the most comprehensive in terms of the sectors and organisations within them, which we have identified to partner up with in carrying out women’s advancement and sustainable development activities.

“We hope these exchanges will continue to grow and become a permanent form of interaction between us and Brazil, and play a significant role in making women’s empowerment objectives actionable on both sides. We are proud to see the progress we have made in transforming discussions and proposals into concrete pathways that have facilitated women's entry into business communities in the UAE, the region and even internationally, and are eager to continue developing women’s capacities and enriching their experiences in a variety of sectors.”