What are you doing in the Middle East?

The one I’ve been talking about through my visits is actually Yemen. Yemen is not an easy country. I mean, politically, it’s very difficult and very conservative in many ways. But we have the most fantastic programs for women there. We are training young girls to be community midwives. They have got primary education and we have devised a two-year program for girls who haven’t had even secondary education, which is fantastic because those girls are going back to those villages, and the health authorities employ them properly when we train them.

We are doing some really wonderful work on women’s rights, getting them volunteer lawyers if they are arrested or if they’re imprisoned. That is because so many women are wrongly imprisoned. And I just feel that could be extended throughout the whole of Yemen. So I have been getting a drive in the last few days … to get some really good work spread throughout the country.

But the place we’ve got sorted here is Dubai Cares. They are already funding us in Niger and Pakistan for education, including … water and sanitation in schools, as well to make sure that girls can go to school feeling safe and secure. But there’s lots more that can be done.

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