James Kidner

“I first became involved with the Jameel family when, about 20 years ago, I was working for [HRH] the Prince of Wales as his Deputy Private Secretary, and this was the time of the opening of the new Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

And His Royal Highness was interested in this family, who were doing so many remarkable philanthropic things that very closely chimed with work that he had been doing over many years.

Almost wherever you look in the world there has been extraordinary impact from this family’s philanthropic endeavors, whether it’s in the Middle East and their work with with creating opportunities for youth and underserved communities.  Whether it’s in healthcare; or education.  Whether it’s with arts and heritage and the remarkable revival of craft traditions, which I’ve seen on the ground in places like Jeddah and Cairo.

There’s an extraordinary range and breadth of lives touched by the remarkable work that this family has enabled.

When any of the Jameel family are engaged with a challenge or a problem, they’re giving it their full attention, and they’re also genuinely wanting to go into those difficult fields – not where everyone else is going, where there may be some easy wins – but actually to look in at the real underlying challenges, and to engage with them at a very human level.

And it’s a delight to watch the way that organizations respond to that sort of philanthropy; where it is genuinely the love of the people and of the challenge that they all want to remove, rather than simply an interest in the issue.”

 

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