DUBAI // Nineteen orphans now have a place to live and a “mother and father” to raise them, thanks to a newly-opened care home.
The Family Village, a compound of 16 villas that can house up to 100 children, was completed earlier this year.
The Dh150 million centre, which is run by the Awqaf and Minors Affairs Foundation, aims to offer a healthy environment for the orphans.
Children have been living there since February, but it was officially inaugurated two weeks ago by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai.
There are three classes of employees working at the Family Village – administrators, social workers and caregivers.
The caregivers act as a mother, father or aunt to the children, said Wedad Al Mahmood, the manager or “grandmother” of the village.
“Those who are responsible of taking care of the children directly, work in shifts between the mother and the aunts,” she said. “They become their substitute family by giving all the care that a child needs in terms of education, health, making sure they eat well and, most importantly, giving them love.
“Whatever a child in a normal environment needs, the mother, aunt and father in this case must provide and fill the void.”
The caregivers are provided with emotional and practical training to fill these roles.
“The programme was organised by Dubai Women’s Association and executed by local experts to give caregivers the ability to be able to accept the situations that will arise and ways of dealing with them,” Ms Al Mahmood said.
“They were also given training on how to conduct the operations in cooperation with the SOS Children’s Villages International. A two-month course was given to learn the quality standards that are applied in the village.”
The Family Village includes a small medical clinic for emergencies and a nursery for pre-school orphans.
“We do not have any private facilities in the village because we would like the children to be a part of the community,” Ms Al Mahmood said.
“When it comes to activities, children are registered in public centres and institutes and receive their education and health care like normal children.”
She called on members of the community to volunteer their time to the children, whether it is helping out in social, educational or creative activities.
Tayeb Al Rais, Amaf undersecretary, thanked all the parties that had helped in the village’s creation.
“What was built – praise be to Allah – was done so with the great support of the Government, businessmen, the Emirati people and the residents of the UAE, who have donated Dh150 million that went into building and establishing this one-of-a-kind facility,” he said.
“This project will be the house for tens of children who have no parents and will provide housing, education, health care, nutrition and emotional care for all.’ This care, he said, would continue until the children were able to support themselves.
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- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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