From a carefree teen to a dedicated social worker
What initially started of as a forceful volunteering has now become the motto of life for teenager Saima Khan. When she was 13, her mother Shaher Banu confiscated her mobile and limited the use of the Internet until the youngster actually did something ‘productive’. Although it annoyed her, in order to get her ‘life’ (phone and gadgets) back, Saima started taking care of cats and kittens at the Sharjah Cats and Dogs Shelter.
“Every Saturday, my mother would pull the blanket from over my head and drag me to Islamic classes. I must admit, even though I didn’t want to go, somewhere deep down just being present in a gathering which was for the sake of Allah brought peace to my heart.
“During this time, I came across this verse from the Holy Quran which said: “Those who spend in charity will be richly rewarded” (57:10). This motivated me to volunteer for my first event which involved learning American Sign Language (ASL). Even though I had never had any interest in learning ASL before, knowing that this skill would allow me to communicate with a community of people with whom I would otherwise struggle to communicate with — people with special needs. After that event, my desire to become a world renowned social worker was born.”
There was no looking back for Saima after that. In a span of six months, she had transformed into a hard core volunteer.
“My first volunteering event changed my perspective about making a difference completely. I loved it and actually felt I did something productive. I realised that helping those in need was my inner calling.”
Hence, Saima embarked on a journey of transformation from being a carefree, self-centred teenager to becoming a dedicated social worker. From there on (from the age of 13), the now Year 1 Heriot-Watt University student has been into volunteering work and is currently involved with 75 charity organisations.
‘STEP’PING UP social work
Saima launched a youth platform namely Step Up Dubai in July, 2016, to give youngsters (below 18) the opportunity to give back to the society.
“It all started when my senior Manaal contacted me in being involved to set up something to empower the youth of today. Almost every organisation in the UAE requires volunteers
My first volunteering event changed my perspective about making a difference completely. I loved it and actually felt I did something productive. I realised that helping those in need was my inner calling.” Saima Khan
to be 18 and above but does that mean we deprive youngsters of the opportunity to make a difference? After much contemplation and discussion, I and Manaal decided to launch Step Up.”
After forming Step Up, I and Manaal got together with our closest friends — Noorain, Saif, Vishal, Ashita and Shashank — to form the core team.
The small group of five friends rapidly grew and now has over 2,000 registered volunteers and 20 schools. Since this accounts for a major responsibility, Step Up is currently under the licensing process of the Community Development Authority. After being licensed, Step Up will expand to other emirates to revolutionise social volunteering for the youth.
Saima says her biggest achievement is becoming a delegate and Global Youth Ambassador at the United Nations for a cause that it is very dear to her heart, global poverty. She has also won the International Diana Award for Champion Volunteer, and has roughly put in over 5,000 hours in volunteering with different groups such as Dubai Autism Centre, Dubai Cares, the Safe and Sound breast cancer charity and refugee-helping PennyAppeal.
Saima has done everything from planting trees, picking up litter, providing drinks for labourers, to visiting sick children, and just spending time and money in helping others. She said she doesn’t do this for recognition. ‘I do it because being selfless is so fulfilling.”
Talking about Step Up’s first green event, Saima said that ‘Plant a Ghaf tree’ event initiated by Goumbook was indeed an exciting and memorable event. The volunteers were cheerful and were readily assisting and helping us at all times, they also assisted us in splitting the ghaf pods and planting the seed in bag pots with our name tag. We planted over 20 ghaf trees.
Love for special needs kids
“I love children and especially children with special needs. So catering to their needs makes me very happy. It has moulded me into a very positive person.” The Step Up team collaborated with Our Own English High School, Dubai, and GEMS Private Schools to organise a Winter Break Party for the special needs students at Manzil Special Needs Centre. About 60 volunteers from the two schools took part in activities such as face painting, tattoos, henna designing, singing and dancing with the special needs students.
She is one of the brand ambassadors of breast cancer awareness initiative Protect Your Mom Campaign. “Last year, I won the award for ‘Maximum Pledges’ and first place for the ‘Best School’ in creating awareness. We, as a team, have held several offline events prompting children, teenagers and adults to express their views on Breast Cancer Awareness.”
Encouraging more youngsters to participate in welfare events, Saima and her friends organised a beach clean-up with around 60 school students giving a ‘day off’ to the municipality workers and empowering the youth to sustainable responsibilities.
“We collected cigarette buds, plastic bags, non-degradable waste and much more. I, as an individual, was always involved in beach clean-ups since I was 11 years old. Now we have a family of 200 who help me in cleaning beaches from time to time.”
Another brilliant initiative that her group Step Up does is in collaboration with the UK-based charity organisation PennyAppeal’s Thirst Relief International initiative. Saima has contributed to building wells along with her friends and family members for poverty-stricken countries. Her first well/hand pump was completed in 2016 in Nepal.
“I and my teammates recognised a problem in Nepal after the earthquake. Nepal is one of the world’s poorest nations to be challenged by water scarcity, and after doing much research, I found out that women and children have to walk miles to collect water for their family. Since we are not allowed to do fundraising on our level in the UAE, me and my two friends pitched in whatever we have (our pocket money and contribution of few family members) to build this hand pump. This project took 10 months to be completed. The hand pump is in Rautahat District, in Sirsiya village.”
The youngsters and her few other friends also managed to instal wells/hand-pumps in Pakistan and Bangladesh this year. “I aspire to build 50 wells over the coming years to help eradicate poverty with my friends and family members,” Saima told