RIYADH: Language is a tool for connecting nations and strengthening communication channels that move a person from national to the international stage, said Iqraa TV host, May Mashaly.

Mashaly, who worked at Channel 2 as news anchor and a program hosting foreign diplomats, said using languages by interpreting its content in visual media to spread Islamic culture is one of the effective ways for non-Arabic speaking people.

In an interview with Arab News, Mashaly cited the simultaneous translation facility that Iqraa has in its English channel for promoting moderate Islam through tolerance and peace in the international community.

“The great experience in my life is my work with Iqraa channel where I was given a chance to produce important ideas about women in Haj through “Muslim woman magazine” Mashaly said. “I present the program in Arabic and now it is being interpreted into English for the benefit of non-Arabic speaking around the globe.”

The program is “now being translated into French also. With all these three languages, Islam concepts about women were spread all over Europe and America.”

The importance of English language, she said, doesn’t stop on disseminating certain ideas to other foreign people, but it also helps in spreading Islam by all methods and with all media tools.

The channel produced for the first time a women’s program that tackles women-related issues during the Haj season. This is considered to be one of the latest steps in the channel history. “Through these languages the channel helps in clarifying the right vision of the Muslim woman and shedding light on the Muslim minorities in all places,” she said.

Speaking about her experience, Mashaly said “through all my experiences in visual media, I found that it is difficult to prove myself easily on the ground that the job of a female TV announcer requires many tasks.”

According to Mashaly, there are many challenges that face the female TV crew everywhere, “especially when I started working with Saudi television under the Ministry of culture and Information. I consider it be the most important and practical school in my profession.”

She said, “I have to work with motivation power for all cultures, especially when dealing with citizens and transferring their experiences and knowledge to the international world through his language.”

“A bilingual media person who speaks two important languages — English and Arabic fluently — carries in his or her mind two minds: Arabic, with which he or she lives and copes with, and English via which he or she learns and will be influenced by the world,” she continued.

She explained: “This person is the cultured media person who produces new thing every day, affects the people because he is a full person with a clear identity influencing people and is affected by them.”

Mashaly said that her cultural and professional experiences didn’t only include presenting official news with a language which is considered as my second language and not the mother language, But also it extends to public and media relations that led me, after good time of working and learning in different places, to produce the philosophical relation theory between PR and English literature from a historical and dramatically perspective and vision.