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