CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: THE 2008 SECRETARY'S AWARD FOR

UNCLAS KUWAIT 001563

SIPDIS

STATE FOR G/IWI Orna Blum; ECA/PE/V/F/E NEA/ARP, NEA/PPD Agnew
Pendleton
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KWMN PREL KPAO PHUM
SUBJECT: CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: THE 2008 SECRETARY'S AWARD FOR
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN OF COURAGE

REF: A) STATE 00126072


1. American Embassy Kuwait is pleased to nominate the following
outstanding candidate for consideration for the 2008 Secretary's
Award for the International Women of Courage:


2. Name: Ms. Farea Ahmad Al-Saqqaf, Founder, Vice Chairman and
Managing Director of The Lothan Youth Achievement Center (LoYAC).

[Place of Birth: Kuwait. Date of Birth: 12/17/1958. Name of
Organization: Lothan Youth Achievement Center. Address: Bayt
Lothan, Salmiya, Kuwait
Tel: (965)572-7399 Fax:(965)574-1990
E-mail: loyac1@hotmail.com
Website address: www.loyac.org]

Ms. Al-Saqqaf is also an active member of the Kuwait Red Crescent
Society, the Women's Cultural and Social Society, the Kuwait
Economic Society and the Kuwait Graduates' Society.


3. Ms. Farea Ahmad Al-Saqqaf is the director of LoYAC, a private
organization which promotes social responsibility, environmental
awareness, and humanitarian values in young Kuwaitis of both genders
through community service. The organization has been especially
active in encouraging youth to participate in outreach to less
advantaged members of the community as well as providing
gender-integrated opportunities for youth to become involved in the
performing arts and in environmental awareness activities. LoYAC's
ultimate goal is promoting secularism, tolerance of other religions,
and character-building through acceptance of responsibility, in an
effort to prevent impressionable youth from being influenced by
extremist elements.


4. Under the leadership of Ms. Farea Ahmad Al-Saqqaf, LoYAC has
more than exceeded its initial objectives; she has personally
involved Kuwaiti teenagers in a beach clean-up campaign; led
volunteers to build schools, combat illiteracy, and promote
HIV-awareness in Kenya; and has organized opportunities for Kuwaiti
youth to intern in the private and public sectors during the summer.
She has placed several young men and women in a summer internship
program offered by the British Parliament, a summer internship
sponsored by AMIDEAST in Washington, and a similar program at the
Exxon-Mobil Corporation in Houston, Texas. Most important, she has
organized English language instruction through AMIDEAST for less
advantaged Kuwaiti high school students, who are a target for
fundamentalists.


5. Ms. Farea Ahmad Al-Saqqaf's success has not gone unnoticed by
the influential conservative elements of Kuwaiti society. In fact,
her ability to attract lesser advantaged Kuwaiti youth to her
programs has become so threatening to religious conservatives that
one of the governmental organizations dominated by them offered her
an exorbitant sum to resign, in hopes of eviscerating her program
and redirecting its agenda to their own purposes. She has
steadfastly refused to be bought off because of her firm opposition
to the fundamentalist agenda.


6. Youth is an extremely important sector of Kuwaiti society with
the under twenty-five age component amounting to approximately sixty
percent of all citizens. These are people whose memory of America's
liberating Kuwait from Saddam's tyranny is very dim. Less
privileged Kuwaiti young people (and there are many) are
particularly targeted by jihadist appeals. Ms. Al-Saqqaf's work,
therefore, is of paramount significance in eliciting Kuwaitis'
support for the global war against terrorism. Post believes that
this Kuwaiti woman of exceptional courage, who is resisting a strong
current of conservatism in her country, and who has spearheaded this
model program for Arab youth, deserves to be recognized for
outstanding achievement in the face of concerted opposition, with
the 2008 Secretary's Award for International Women of Courage.

Misenheimer