From The News DESSC - Issue 5

A LIFE LESS ORDINARY

An interview with Ammar Shams, Trustee

What are your memories of growing up Dubai?

My childhood in Dubai, Deira in the 1960s, was probably very different from what anyone can relate to. As a comparison on size, at the time of the UAE’s creation in 1971, the population of the entire country, all seven Emirates, was about 200,000 people compared to the 10 million or so now, so you can imagine 1960s Deira was very small.

The neighbourhood I grew up in was very Arab and we all knew each other. It was probably the quintessential childhood you would expect; running around the streets barefoot playing in places that had sand everywhere. We made our own goal posts, our own perimeter for football pitches, and now if you were to go back to where I used to play as a child, there’s probably not a lot more than a couple of square feet of sand left. So, my memories are of running around the neighbourhood, all of us Emirati, playing indigenous games that have, more or less, disappeared now. It was a carefree, relaxed childhood.

Tell us a little bit about your education from early school until now.

So, I’m from Deira, originally from a place called Freej Al Murar. The nearest landmark now is probably the Hyatt Regency, although the Hyatt is built on reclaimed land, so the water used to come up much closer into our neighbourhood. I went to Saint Mary’s Catholic School from 1968 to 1980, located beside DESS in Oud Metha. I then went off to the UK in 1980 to do my A levels, and then my undergraduate degree in Economics at Canterbury University in Kent. I came back and worked from 1986 through until 2005, then went back to university for a year to complete a Masters in International Comparative Law. I returned to the UAE and worked again from 2006 through to 2018 and then went back to the university again in 2018 to do a PhD in gender issues in Islamic law and was just awarded that PhD this summer.

What career opportunities have you had as a result or your studies and qualifications?

I worked across several industries, employed to do very different jobs. I worked for the oil and gas industry for about 17 years, primarily in HR. I worked in various roles with HSBC over about 8 years, HR for a couple of years, and corporate sustainability for about 4 which was very rewarding. I worked for the Federal Government organising our first elections in 2006. I worked for the Film Festival twice, which was phenomenal fun. The job was essentially attending a range of film festivals, watching movies, going to after-parties, rubbing shoulders with the good and the great of the industry and trying to convince them to come to Dubai to join our festival which was in December every year.

It’s fair to say you are an academic, you enjoy studying!

I enjoy academia, I value academia. I love learning and a certain arrogance in me loves teaching, especially amongst our own community. I think those that have been privileged enough to have seen the transformation from what we were to what we are owe it to the next generation to share our experience with them. Anyone who comes to Dubai looks around and says “oh, this is rather impressive”, but they’re impressed at the destination. The destination is nowhere near as amazing as the journey. The journey we took to get here is the one that I think we need to share.

What led to your role as a trustee at DESSC?

Besides having gone through my own academic journey of studying, I’ve also been involved in the delivery of education. The first time I taught was in 1993 at the Higher Colleges of Technology, and I was still in my 20s. I sat on their Advisory Boards and then chaired the Advisory Board for all Business courses for about 10 years. I sat on the first Advisory Board for the British University in Dubai when they were setting up the university, and that was with the view towards building an institute of higher learning in the UAE that would help the UAE eventually be a leader in at least certain spheres. I sat on the Advisory Board for the University of Strathclyde for about 8 years and I’m going to start teaching again from January onwards.

This is my 7th year on the DESSC Board of Trustees, and I couldn’t have put my hand high enough when given the opportunity to join. Of course, I’ve known DESSC my whole life, literally from the 1960s. I could peer over our school wall and see the DESS playground, so I’ve always known the school as one of the oldest schools in Dubai, one of the best schools in Dubai. Who wouldn’t want to be associated with it?

I love being involved in education. It gives me an insight into what’s coming down the pipeline and I get to see what the next generation looks like, what they have to go through, what their challenges are. They’re very different, it’s changed so much.

What goals or dreams do you still have?

I think I would probably like to write a book. My wife kept on telling me I should write because she thinks I could. I wrote an article once for The National newspaper and they liked it. They published it and then they asked me could I write more, and so I ended up writing a series of articles for the National. I think I gave myself a target of 10 and I ended up writing 12 and that was fun while it lasted. I thought it would be fun to write a book focussing on a historical, cultural narrative about Dubai; the journey so to speak, taken through conversations with strangers. I probably still will, it’s just a question of when all the ducks are in a row.

Not many countries have had to go through as phenomenal a change as we have in two generations. When I reflect on how my parent’s childhood was, living in houses made of palm tree leaves, having never gone to school and then having kids like us who could probably walk around London blindfolded. Even in one generation, my mother has her little iPad, she speaks, reads, and writes four languages, having never gone to school. It’s amazing to me, and it needs to be shared. People need to know that where they live today, outside of their own little bubble, there’s been an amazing story that’s happened around them. Maybe someday I’d like to share that story.