“The ‘sameness moment’ is when you look into the eyes of another human being, and culture and identity melt away – you see them as they truly are,” says Lina Nahhas, founder of the [sameness] project.
She coined the phrase sameness moment to describe what she hopes to achieve through her endeavour.
The 43-year-old Palestinian-Canadian has been striving to create sameness moments between people ever since she experienced one herself that was so profound it changed her life forever.
Eight years ago, right after her daughter, Jood, was born, Nahhas visited Palestine for the first time, with her new baby in tow.
“I had a moment with an Israeli mother,” she says. “Something dissolved between us and we both realised we wanted our children to live. We looked at each other and thought: ‘We have the same pain, the same joy, the same dream for our children’.
“For the first time, it hit me – we both had children and we were both children at one point. How can it be that we allow the world to do this to our children? It was very personal. And as difficult as it may be, it didn’t take away from my Palestinian identity, because it made my narrative as a Palestinian more valid for the human plight.
“If I could feel that way with my enemy, that means humans have within them a muscle for empathy, to see the other person’s pain. And we vowed to each other that this is the point where something bigger needs to be done – for my community, for the world, and for my child. I need her to grow up as a human being and not have all these identity layers in the way of her being seen. Those were the seeds that instigated my dream.”
Nahhas had just sold her UAE-based company Siraj, the first all-Arab boutique market research and consulting agency in the region. After 16 years in the corporate world, she started focusing her energy on working out how to build an empathy project that would enable humans to see each other beyond their identity masks.
Four years later, Nahhas told family friends Jonny and Aimee-Rose Kennaugh about her sameness moment. The couple were staying with her at her home in Dubai as part of a round-the-world trip.
“Those casual beachside conversations led to us sitting down and brainstorming how to make this idea of sameness a tangible experience”, says Jonny, a social worker from New Zealand. “After a few months, Lina asked if she could hire us. We decided to give it a go and see what happens.”
That was in 2011. Initially, Nahhas had to fund the project on her own, selling her Dubai apartment to invest in the venture. Last year, revenue started trickling in, with companies such as PepsiCo getting on board. So far, the [sameness] project has had nine different ventures, with the theme of creating sameness moments underlying each venture. The projects range from giving out water and showing appreciation to manual labourers to chatting to strangers in galleries on a “conversation chair”.
In one project, shoes were sold containing the life stories of maids on each sole – so wearers could literally “walk in their shoes”.
“As soon as I had my child, I started witnessing how some people behaved towards their nannies, it was just horrendous,” says Nahhas. “We wanted people to feel empathy for these women.”
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
UAE gold medallists:
Omar Al Suweidi (46kg), Khaled Al Shehhi (50kg), Khalifa Humaid Al Kaabi (60kg), Omar Al Fadhli (62kg), Mohammed Ali Al Suweidi (66kg), Omar Ahmed Al Hosani (73), all in the U18’s, and Khalid Eskandar Al Blooshi (56kg) in the U21s.
Look north
BBC business reporters, like a new raft of government officials, are being removed from the national and international hub of London and surely the quality of their work must suffer.
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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Tips for job-seekers
- Do not submit your application through the Easy Apply button on LinkedIn. Employers receive between 600 and 800 replies for each job advert on the platform. If you are the right fit for a job, connect to a relevant person in the company on LinkedIn and send them a direct message.
- Make sure you are an exact fit for the job advertised. If you are an HR manager with five years’ experience in retail and the job requires a similar candidate with five years’ experience in consumer, you should apply. But if you have no experience in HR, do not apply for the job.
David Mackenzie, founder of recruitment agency Mackenzie Jones Middle East
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo
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The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
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Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
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The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
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The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
![From left, staff member Fiona Hepher with the co-founders of the [sameness] project Lina Nahhas and Jonny Kennaugh. Satish Kumar / The National](https://thenational-the-national-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/4B6QZAJ3C5VV5NYH2SYTIABDW4.jpg?smart=true&auth=de62be7ff5819246839de2958d85e6d28e685412326e88442fc91744eb4efcbc&width=800&height=450)