DUBAI //A Dubai resident, named the Gulf's most inspiring woman for helping 600 Bangladeshi slum dwellers attend school and two dozen find jobs, learnt giving from an expert.
Maria Conceicao, 34, from Portugal, won an online vote sponsored by Kraft Foods, beating two other finalists selected by three judges from 200 submissions. The prize and US$10,000 (Dh36,730) were given in conjunction with International Women's Day.
Ms Conceicao's acceptance speech moved people to tears as she thanked those who supported her, most especially the poor, widowed Angolan refugee and mother of six who adopted her when she was two.
"Who feeds six, feeds seven," was her foster mother Cristina's motto, Ms Conceicao said. "Her values and generosity are part of my DNA."
Cristina volunteered to raise Ms Conceicao for a time while her mother was struggling.
The mother, later diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, was never able to take her daughter back.
Ms Conceicao lived with Cristina for nine years until her foster mother died of a heart attack. She was then was raised by her foster siblings.
She worked as an Emirates Airline flight attendant for six years and, during trips to Bangladesh, saw the grim life of slum children in the capital.
Ms Conceicao set up the Maria Cristina Foundation to help children attend school for free and find jobs in Dubai.
She raised funds by trekking across the North Pole, and urged others to donate whatever they could - cans of food, an extra bedroom, a ride to work, phone credit.
Many gave, impressed by Ms Conceicao's dedication. Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, personally sponsored five Bangladeshi children to study in Dubai.
Etihad Airways agreed to provide plane tickets for others coming to the UAE.
In 2010, one family offered to match Ms Conceicao's airline salary for two years so she could leave her job and perform charity work full time.
Even the slum children who have received her help wanted to give back.
Sumon Azad, 19, received seven years of free schooling and has just got a job at Emirates as a wheelchair assistant. Sumon's monthly salary of Dh2,400 amounts to two years of wages in Bangladesh.
He plans to give Dh1,000 of it to the Maria Cristina Foundation.
"We don't need the money," Sumon said, explaining that his family of six can live off the income of his father, who holds the same job through the help of the foundation.
Rosa Areosa, 46, a South African-Portuguese woman, raised Dh200,000 by completing seven marathon walks in all seven emirates in seven days last year.
"I'm not a wealthy person or a famous person but I can walk," Ms Areosa said.
Com Mirza, a businessman from Canada who helps start-ups, offered to assist in turning the foundation into a self-sustaining organisation.
Mr Mirza is encouraging Ms Conceicao to publish a book, sell merchandise such as calendars and market her charity work as a job-recruitment service. The profits would go toward expanding the foundation.
"When it comes to organisation, or management or monetising herself, she's very bad at that," he said. "When it comes to basically rolling up her sleeves and doing work, she's amazing. She's tireless.
"The more people heard her story and everything that she shared and everything she's done, the more it morphed into more people wanting to help her."
chuang@thenational.ae
To donate, go to this website: mariacristinafoundation.org/
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
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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.”
