When it comes to mental health in the region, few voices have reached such volumes as Ally Salama’s.
The region’s first self-proclaimed mental health ambassador may only be 24 years old, but Salama’s social work has brought him before a UN Development Programme assembly to discuss the importance of mental health in the Mena region, and his digital agency, EMPWR House, has been endorsed by Harvard University.
Who is Ally Salama?
While his professional life is certainly well documented, his personal backstory remains uncharted.
Born into an upper-class family, Salama began his life from a position of undeniable power, at the top of the socioeconomic food chain, attending one of Cairo's most prestigious schools and training at its most highly regarded sporting clubs.
But when he was about 8, his father's business went bankrupt.
"That changed our life, it really did," says Salama during an intimate chat with The National. Soon after, his father moved the family to the UK with a view to working and living there, while pursuing a PhD.
There are things in life that will shatter you , but these are the things that make you stronger in the end
It was in the UK that Salama had his first brushes with depression, as he faced serious bullying in his new school.
The move to a new country also took a heavy toll on his mother, who did not adjust well, especially after she received news that her father had been diagnosed with stage-3 cancer and given one year to live.
While Salama's stayed in the UK, Salama and his mum returned to Egypt to care for his sick grandfather, but he would go on to lose both his maternal grandparents in a span of two years.
“I have a lot of respect for my father, but we were never really that close; he was sort of emotionally unavailable, always busy with his work.”
Launching the Empathy Always Wins podcast
As he helped his mother grieve, Salama began developing traits that he describes as instrumental to the social work he is known for today: empathy, supportiveness and an aptitude for leadership.
“I see myself as a pretty strong guy, but there are things in life that will shatter you no matter what, but these are the things that make you stronger in the end,” he says.
Salama is now the host of the Empathy Always Wins podcast, which he describes as "an intersection between mental health and leadership".
His agency produces online content with an Arab audience in mind, a demographic that, because of taboos surrounding mental health, may not always be comfortable admitting they have a problem.
Paternal influence
In his father's absence, Salama found the male support he was looking for in his family's driver, Abdel Ghany, who introduced him to a side of Egypt that many upper-class children don't get to experience. A more thrilling, dangerous side.
“Abdel Ghany has since died, which was really tough for me. He was like my dad; he was the guy I was safe with, you know,” he says.
Yet it is those experiences among Egypt's lower classes he had with Abdel Ghany that gave Salama the insight to make the content he produces today. "I love Egypt, I'm very patriotic. Everything I have been doing was aimed at making this country better," says Salama, who now splits his time living in Dubai and Toronto. Salama adds that his family's long-loved supporter, Wagida, who had been with his grandmother since before his mother was born, was also an influential figure in his life.
Mental health ambassador
Another important father figure in his life is Dr Nasser Loza, president-elect of the World Federation for Mental Health and a consulting psychiatrist at Cairo's prestigious Behman Hospital. Salama credits his professional success to Loza's mentorship.
Taking care of yourself is an important cornerstone of Salama's philosophy today, because, as he explains, he knows what it feels like to not look after your own needs, and he's intimately familiar with the problems that can arise from that.
A vital part of fending for yourself is finding healthy outlets for our negative feelings, he asserts. For Salama, it was singing that helped him through a tumultuous personal life, a hobby he began taking more seriously at aged 15, while attending high school in Canada, where he lived with his worst bouts of depression.
"I was alone, without a support system. I thought a lot about suicide during this time.”
Salama is now able to look back at those tough times with gratitude, however, because in 2016, while in Canada, he started the Break the Silence Facebook page, an anonymous platform through which Egyptians could share their mental health experiences without having to reveal their identities.
The platform was widely lauded and amassed a whopping 80,000 followers on Facebook, catapulting Salama into the spotlight.
His career went from strength to strength after that. For example, in 2019, he entered an influencer marketing campaign with EgyptAir, which amassed about one million organic views across all social platforms in under a week.
In the same year, his second campaign, #PeopleToPeople, snagged the Middle East's Best Promotional Film award from the World Tourism Organisation.
Both campaigns were collaborative efforts, and proof that Salama has come a long way from that shy, displaced child who took on more burdens than he could carry. Today, he is a charismatic leader who isn't afraid to be vulnerable.
“I am in the business of selling you back to you,” he says proudly. “Because the most daring person you can be in your life, is yourself.”
Match info
Manchester City 3 (Jesus 22', 50', Sterling 69')
Everton 1 (Calvert-Lewin 65')
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
KEY%20DATES%20IN%20AMAZON'S%20HISTORY
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MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FINAL RECKONING
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg
Rating: 4/5
UAE SQUAD
Ahmed Raza (Captain), Rohan Mustafa, Jonathan Figy, CP Rizwan, Junaid Siddique, Mohammad Usman, Basil Hameed, Zawar Farid, Vriitya Aravind (WK), Waheed Ahmed, Karthik Meiyappan, Zahoor Khan, Darius D'Silva, Chirag Suri
RESULT
Wolves 1 (Traore 67')
Tottenham 2 (Moura 8', Vertonghen 90 1')
Man of the Match: Adama Traore (Wolves)
Honeymoonish
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PROFILE
Name: Enhance Fitness
Year started: 2018
Based: UAE
Employees: 200
Amount raised: $3m
Investors: Global Ventures and angel investors
Sour%20Grapes
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Small Victories: The True Story of Faith No More by Adrian Harte
Jawbone Press
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Six large-scale objects on show
- Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
- The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
- A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
- A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
- Torrijos Palace dome
What drives subscription retailing?
Once the domain of newspaper home deliveries, subscription model retailing has combined with e-commerce to permeate myriad products and services.
The concept has grown tremendously around the world and is forecast to thrive further, according to UnivDatos Market Insights’ report on recent and predicted trends in the sector.
The global subscription e-commerce market was valued at $13.2 billion (Dh48.5bn) in 2018. It is forecast to touch $478.2bn in 2025, and include the entertainment, fitness, food, cosmetics, baby care and fashion sectors.
The report says subscription-based services currently constitute “a small trend within e-commerce”. The US hosts almost 70 per cent of recurring plan firms, including leaders Dollar Shave Club, Hello Fresh and Netflix. Walmart and Sephora are among longer established retailers entering the space.
UnivDatos cites younger and affluent urbanites as prime subscription targets, with women currently the largest share of end-users.
That’s expected to remain unchanged until 2025, when women will represent a $246.6bn market share, owing to increasing numbers of start-ups targeting women.
Personal care and beauty occupy the largest chunk of the worldwide subscription e-commerce market, with changing lifestyles, work schedules, customisation and convenience among the chief future drivers.
BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails
Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies
Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments
Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Results
Men's finals
45kg:Duc Le Hoang (VIE) beat Zolfi Amirhossein (IRI) points 29-28. 48kg: Naruephon Chittra (THA) beat Joseph Vanlalhruaia (IND) TKO round 2.
51kg: Sakchai Chamchit (THA) beat Salam Al Suwaid (IRQ) TKO round 1. 54kg: Veerasak Senanue (THA) beat Huynh Hoang Phi (VIE) 30-25.
57kg: Almaz Sarsembekov (KAZ) beat Tak Chuen Suen (MAC) RSC round 3. 60kg: Yerkanat Ospan (KAZ) beat Ibrahim Bilal (UAE) 30-27.
63.5kg: Abil Galiyev (KAZ) beat Nouredine Samir (UAE) 29-28. 67kg: Narin Wonglakhon (THA) beat Mohammed Mardi (UAE) 29-28.
71kg: Amine El Moatassime (UAE) w/o Shaker Al Tekreeti (IRQ). 75kg: Youssef Abboud (LBN) w/o Ayoob Saki (IRI).
81kg: Ilyass Habibali (UAE) beat Khaled Tarraf (LBN) 29-28. 86kg: Ali Takaloo (IRI) beat Emil Umayev (KAZ) 30-27.
91kg: Hamid Reza Kordabadi (IRI) beat Mohamad Osaily (LBN) RSC round 1. 91-plus kg: Mohammadrezapoor Shirmohammad (IRI) beat Abdulla Hasan (IRQ) 30-27.
Women's finals
45kg: Somruethai Siripathum (THA) beat Ha Huu Huynh (VIE) 30-27. 48kg: Thanawan Thongduang (THA) beat Colleen Saddi (PHI) 30-27.
51kg: Wansawang Srila Or (THA) beat Thuy Phuong Trieu (VIE) 29-28. 54kg: Ruchira Wongsriwo (THA) beat Zeinab Khatoun (LBN) 30-26.
57kg: Sara Idriss (LBN) beat Zahra Nasiri Bargh (IRI) 30-27. 60kg: Kaewrudee Kamtakrapoom (THA) beat Sedigheh Hajivand (IRI) TKO round 2.
63.5kg: Nadiya Moghaddam (IRI) w/o Reem Al Issa (JOR).
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
Lexus LX700h specs
Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor
Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
THE%20HOLDOVERS
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
