Queen Rania of Jordan: Royal for a Cause

Queen Rania was born Rania Yassin on August 31, 1970 in Kuwait City. She studied business administration at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. After graduation, she returned to Kuwait and worked at Citibank then at Apple Computers in Amman, Jordan. She met Prince Abdullah of Jordan in January 1993 and they got married in June 1993. In February 1999, his father-in-law, King Hussein died, her husband became King Abdullah II, she was crowned a month later as Queen Consort of Jordan. On her coronation at the age of 28, she became the youngest woman to become a Queen Consort in modern times.

As Queen of Jordan, Rania became deeply involved in various crusades and campaigns especially in the field of education and learning. She launched several programs about education and interactive learning, community empowerment and Jordan’s sustainability activities; she also chairs the Royal Health Awareness Society and Jordan River Children program to protect children from political and cultural abuses. The Child Safety Program, which she launched in 1998, addresses the immediate needs of children at risk from abuse and initiated a long-term campaign to increase public awareness about violence against children. She also advocates for Global Education and became a co-founder of the #1Goal: Education for All campaign which aims to provide basic education to all deserving children and had partnered with several universities around the world for scholarship programs to realize this goal.

 

In 2000, she was invited by UNICEF to join their Global Leadership Initiative program and worked with different world leaders to improve the welfare of children around the world. In 2007 she became the UNICEF’s first eminent advocate for Children, two years later she became the honorary global chair of United Nation Girls’ Education Initiative. The Queen aims to present Jordan as a safe and wonderful tourism destination in the Middle East, she also worked to promote cultural and interfaith dialogue for the sake of peace and understanding initiating a crusade that would alter the misconceptions of other nations about the Arab world.

She is one of the few royals who used the convenience of modern technology to discuss cross-cultural dialogue, education and social change. In 2009, Queen Rania had announced that she has an official twitter and facebook accounts. Asking why she used Twitter, the Queen said: It’s about using social media for social change: creating a community of advocates who can use their voices on behalf of the voiceless, or leverage their talents, skills, knowledge, and resources to put more children into classrooms, or pressure their elected representatives to get global education top of the agenda.

She also participated in YouTube’s In My Name campaign for the video of “End Poverty-Be the Generation” which calls world leaders to keep on their promises they made during the 2000 United Nations Millennium Summit. She also published numerous children’s books: The King’s Gift (a book about his late father-in-law), Eternal Beauty, Maha of the Mountains and Sandwich Swap she co-authored with Kelly DiPucchio. Queen Rania and King Abdullah II together have four children.