I am involved in many charity organizations, but one of the most important is Al-Eman Cancer Society for Women… We try to serve cancer patients and their families in all aspects of social services by visiting them and seeing what is needed and providing that, Jawhara Al-Angari, president of Al-Eman said.
Al-Angari says one of the biggest dilemmas she faces while working in charity organizations in the Kingdom is the lack of detailed information about Saudi society. “We have no precise information in this country regarding the percentage of poverty or about possible fields of training which need attention. Without this data, the work is impossible to complete successfully,” she said.
For this reason, Al-Angari has spearheaded the establishment of the Ikatifaa Society. “In this organization, which started in Jeddah this year, we physically go out and work in field research, district by district, door to door, collecting social data such as the number of people in a family, their income level, if any members of the family are studying, if not, why not. We hope to be able to study the results and send them to the Ministry of Social Affairs and other appropriate governmental ministry offices, ” she said.
“So far, the organization has compiled statistics of three to five districts in the southern region of Jeddah. We plan to move northward to research the whole of the city in future months. During the second half of this year, we also plan to move to doing the same kind of field research in villages outside Jeddah and hope to incorporate all our information into a database for the local area,” she said, adding she is pleased to say she is working with a very active and enthusiastic group of ladies, and hopes their efforts will benefit Saudi society.
Al-Angari is also in the process of launching a study of certain rules that could eventually be presented to the Shoura Council in the hope of drawing up set laws to protect women and children from abuse.
“Presently, we are starting shelters and helping all we can to allow women’s voices to be heard. However, we believe that women should also educate themselves about their rights. If a woman has no idea what her rights are, how can she fight for them?” she said.
Al-Angari believes that the root of the problem stems from traditional teachings that women should accept abuse out of fear for themselves or their children, adding that financial issues are another reason that women choose to stay in abusive relationships.
“She may feel that if she leaves she may not be able to support herself or her children, therefore, we always push women to become financially stable enough to be able to have the voice to say no to abuse,” she said.
“Traditional misconceptions have become a thobe (covering) of religion. People honestly don’t know the difference between the two. I believe that unless the public is active enough to take the initiative to become knowledgeable and truly get into the Qur’an and Hadith, they will always remain unaware of their social rights,” she added.
However, charity work and helping society is nothing new for the Saudi philanthropist. Following the completion of her studies in anthropology at the American University of Beirut in 1977, Al-Angari established the Al-Fasaliah Welfare Society with Princess Hessa bint Khalid ibn Abdul Aziz. This was the first time she had joined a welfare organization. She started off doing volunteer work and became director, a post she kept until she moved to the Kingdom’s Asir region in 1981.
In 1983, after getting to know the local society in Asir, Al-Angari was able to establish the Al-Janoob Women’s Welfare Society, the first such organization in the region. “I opened this society with fellow colleagues and was involved in rural women’s training. We visited villages and gave women a three-month course in social training. We then chose leaders from the group to be a connection point between the village and government offices in which they did quite well,” she said, adding that at the same time she was able to finish her book, entitled “Abha bin lad Asir.”
Al-Angari stayed in Asir and came back to Jeddah in 1993 to rejoin the Al-Fasaliah Welfare Society. She worked with Dr. Mohammed Abdu Yamani, chairman of the Al-Cancer Society’s board of directors, to set up the organization’s woman’s branch. One year later, she established the National Society of Human Rights (NSHR), the first human rights body in the Kingdom.
When asked about the barriers and obstacles she has encountered while establishing so many firsts in the Kingdom’s social arena, she replied, “You really can’t say there are obstacles. I mean, people, as donators and supporters, are aware of their religious role and in this aspect we have never had a problem in getting what we need or in getting through to people. The only barrier we have encountered is in the governmental routine with ministries themselves.”
She added, “For example, if we wanted to hold an activity or simple lecture, it would take us a long time and a lot of work to organize because of the process of getting permissions from the local ministry, then ministry heads in Riyadh and then from the local municipality office. I would like to see the new minister implementing a new system differentiating between major events that need extensive permission and simple ones that don’t.”
She added it would make it easier for social organizations like hers to do more positive work in a shorter amount of time and further benefit the community. Commenting on the social headway made over the past year since Arab News first interviewed her, Al-Angari said that the opening up of more employment, education and social fields in providing additional opportunities to Saudi women to financially support themselves and their families has positively enhanced the role of Saudi women.
“But for me this is still not enough… I truly hate the local and international media reports that say that Saudi Arabia has it’s ‘own special society’ regarding its strict regulations regarding rights,” she said.
“We are Muslims, like any other country, and I feel that this attitude needs to be purified from traditional and anti-religious ideas to allow the true beauty and essence of Islam to be reflected to the world,” she said.
When asked what motivates her to continue to fight for human rights and contribute to social causes, she said, “My Islamic religion orders me to be a benefit to myself, my country, and my fellow Saudi nationals. Islam says that a strong Muslim is better than a weak one and as long as I have something to give and don’t give it, it is a sin. The other reason is my abundant love for my country and countrymen stemming from the way my father raised me and from my educational background.”
Al-Angari believes that the future for Saudi women in their fight for rights remains bright. “Because they know that their fight isn’t for foreign rights, but for what belongs to her from the beginning and which was ordained by Allah and revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) 1,400 years ago, namely her Islamic rights. This is all we want and are asking for, nothing more and nothing less. I insist that we can claim our rights through Islamic knowledge,” she said.
