Jordan River Foundation

My work with my friends at Jordan River Foundation (JRF) on many levels, one of which includes providing social media consultancy services by Ideation Box, gave me the chance to go in a visit with JRF’s team in Deir Alla – Al-Balqaa to live cover a follow up visit of Queen Rania on the foundation’s work there on Twitter.

At a certain moment, while we were collecting requests from beneficiaries to deliver to Queen Rania’s office staff, a quick flashback in my head took me back in time to 2006, when I heard news about Her Majesty’s visit to attend the awards ceremony of Queen Rania National Entrepreneurship Competition at Princess Sumaya University for Technology. At a moment of courage I decided that I’m writing a paper and handing it out to the Queen once she arrives to the venue, that paper had one of my dreams that needed the support written on it and it’s the same reason why I’m working on Nakhweh or with JRF.

Honestly speaking, I had my own point of view about royalties at that time and thought: “such a paper will end up in a trash can, maybe a different trash can at the royal court” but it was worth the try especially for a big fan of Her Majesty like me.

Two weeks later I got a shocking call from someone introduced herself as a member of Queen Rania’s office team. I went the next day to meet with her and others who work at the office, we discussed what was written in the paper and figured out that they can’t support me for that one, maybe it was a little bit disappointing but on the other hand I was very happy with the recognition and the “royal” channel that was opened in front of me.

One of the most important highlights during those times was “Le Beirut” trip that was also communicated to Her Majesty’s office and they decided to put me in touch with the amazing Valentina Qussisiya (JRF’s Director General) who went with me through the details of the foundation’s work and decided to support the initiative.

Le Beirut

During the 5 years since I gave the Queen the paper until now, I passed through many experiences and challenges that involves a lot of work done with JRF, that was established by Queen Rania 15 years ago, I also kept watching very closely how Her Majesty is getting into social issues and trying to address many of them in addition to the help in putting Jordan on the map with the amazing image she’s giving about this country and its people. At some point Her Majesty became my role model who always inspires me when she launches new initiatives especially if they are technology or social media related and she made me think and work hard until I finally launched Nakhweh in August 2009.

My story with the inspiration of Queen Rania never stopped and it kept growing remotely until I had the chance to meet her in person few weeks ago for more than 2 hours with my fellow social activists to discuss many issues that face youth in Jordan especially volunteerism.

A lunch with Queen Rania

Today, after choosing Ideation Box to work with JRF on their social media & online communication strategy, I have to say that everyday I learn something new from more than 260 people who work with Her Majesty’s foundation, and I really think that the 1,000,000 beneficiaries they reached couple of months ago is not an accurate number, if they don’t count someone like me in.

I will dedicate another blog post very soon to tell you more about JRF’s work but I have to say that we’re the luckiest citizens on earth for having such leaders who are very inspiring and close to their people.

Queen Rania is descovering the power of the social media.

After 14 months on YouTube, I was wondering if Queen Rania wants to discover the power of social media and networking tools on the web one after the other when I saw her on Twitter a week ago (now with more than 40,000 followers). Apparently I was mistaken, Queen Rania is working on her online presence using more than one social media at once.

When I checked HM’s page on Facebook, I figured out that I was missing something that’s happening on the background. A page with more than 21,000 fans who are increasing rapidly. In addition to adding her twitter updates on the page’s status, Queen Rania is starting discussion topics there, mentioning on of them: “How can we build and broadcast cross-cultural dialogue?”. She also uploaded and still uploading some collections of photos on that page.

The interactivity factor on the Facebook page is impressive, and I’m regretting the couple of days I missed without being there. But the question that I and the people around me are asking; who is updating those media tools?! Is she Queen Rania personally who’s doing so or there is a team that is taking care of it, I’m really curious about it and I hope to have the answer one day.

On a different note; today I realized that the Queen’s page on Facebook was owned by my cyber friend, Mohammad Mansour AKA TripleM and one day he found that he’s no longer the admin of that page. Basically Queen Rania stole her page as it’s supposed to be her property

On March 30, 2008, Queen Rania Al-Abdullah launched her YouTube channel with a video that was aiming to break stereotypes. Now after 14 months Her Majesty has 19 uploaded videos on her YouTube channel with an excellent viral effect.

Today, I got an email from someone that’s saying: “Queen Rania Uses Twitter”. I signed in to my twitter account and searched for Queen Rania, I found her profile there with a lot of updates during the last few hours, actually the first update was posted yesterday. Until now Queen Rania on twitter has 2,993 followers and the number is increasing rapidly each time I refresh the page.

By reading Her Majesty’s updates, everybody on Twitter is up-to-date with a lot of posts that include some personal information about her family and general information about everyday’s events.

This is one step ahead by Her Majesty to be more involved with people and society.

[zoomer]16|295|0|Queen Rania|0|0[/zoomer]

It’s obvious for anyone that Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah is representing the best side of the Arabs to the whole world. She has all aspects of the best first woman globally.

I had no doubts after seeing how Her Majesty is helping people especially the youth in our country that she can do something for someone who’s talented as I can describe myself. I have tried every way to reach her but I thought of the complicated ways while it was much easier than I have ever thought.

One day I was in my university (Princess Sumaya University for Technology) a rumor started to spread all over the university that Her Majesty is coming to visit our university to patron the final ceremony of Queen Rania National Entrepreneurship Competition (Princess Sumaya National Entrepreneurship Competition formerly). Definitely my radar started to work to get the whole details about that visit; finally I could get all of the information but not the exact time.

Well, now the chance came to me and I wouldn’t miss it at all! That day came; an envelope in my hand that contained a paper with a written proposal for a project was ready. The crowed was amazing that day as I was able to see all of the students and the staff together standing around the door to welcome Her Majesty. I looked around trying to find the best place to give the envelope to Her Majesty or at least to shake hands with her if I couldn’t give her the envelope. The best solution was to stand behind the girl who will give the flowers bouquet to Queen Rania.

The security cars started to enter the university campus. One of the cars “Mercedes G Class” appeared between the security cars and there was a woman who was driving that car alone. The door opened, and that was the first surprise; Her Majesty got out of the car that she was driving alone by herself.

The Queen started to shake hands with the hosts; she was getting closer and closer until she reached the door where I’m standing behind that girl. I was very afraid to do that step but I did it finally and said “Hello Your Majesty” and gave her the envelope. She was in her way to the auditorium when I went back to my friends with a big smile on my face saying “I did it”. They were like “as if you did anything”!

Two weeks later my phone rang; a private number, I missed that call, the next day another time my phone rang and I answered; the brief of the conversation: “Hi Kamel, this is (someone) from the office of her majesty the queen and we are looking forward to meet you to discuss your project’s idea”. The happiness that I felt that day was beyond description. The next day I went to the office of Her Majesty – Queen Rania; and the dream started right there.