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By Emirati Women, For Emirati Women: KT series returns
Reported and written by Emirati women, this special series will bring readers closer to trailblazers in nuclear energy, sport, fashion, civil defence, business and beyond
- PUBLISHED: Fri 28 Aug 2026, 6:00 AM
From the control rooms helping power the country’s future to sporting arenas, laboratories, businesses and creative spaces, Emirati women are shaping the UAE’s story in ways both highly visible and still waiting to be discovered. Some are breaking new ground. Others are carrying forward traditions, building institutions, serving their communities, or excelling in fields where their stories have rarely been told.
Over the next two months, Khaleej Times will bring those stories to the fore with the return of 'By Emirati Women, For Emirati Women', a special editorial series conceived, reported and written by the Emirati women in our own newsroom.
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At its heart is a simple idea: who better to tell the stories of Emirati women than Emirati women themselves?
The series begins as the UAE marks Emirati Women’s Day under the 2026 theme, 'We Emerge Stronger and Better', announced by Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, the Mother of the Nation.
The theme celebrates how far Emirati women have come while looking firmly ahead, towards a future in which their ambition, ideas and leadership will continue to shape the country.
This year’s commemoration carries added significance. In July, Sheikha Fatima announced that the celebration, traditionally observed on August 28, would expand into a month-long programme of initiatives and recognition, with a focus on action, appreciation and highlighting women whose journeys reflect their place in the UAE’s development story.
That forward-looking spirit will run through the Khaleej Times series.
Readers will meet Emirati women working in nuclear energy and civil defence, athletes advancing the country’s sporting ambitions, designers and creatives reimagining culture and identity, entrepreneurs building homegrown businesses, and professionals carving out careers in unconventional spaces.
There will be familiar names, but also women whose achievements have happened largely away from the spotlight. Some stories will reach back to those who helped shape communities before the Union, while others will introduce a new generation offering a glimpse of where the UAE is heading next.
Through on-the-ground reporting, candid conversations and personal journeys, the series will look beyond titles and milestones to the people behind them: the families who encouraged them, the mentors who opened doors, the challenges they overcame, the traditions they carry and the sense of national purpose driving their ambitions.
The project builds on the first season of Khaleej Times’ Emirati women series, with a broader canvas and an even stronger focus on the women shaping the country around us.
For Khaleej Times journalists Ruqayya Alqaydi, Azza Al Ali, Arwa Almazrouei and Amal AlHashmi, that makes the project personal too.
Over the next two months, they will seek out the celebrated and the seldom heard, the pioneers who opened doors and the young women now walking through them.
Because these are not only stories about Emirati women.
They are stories about the UAE itself: where it has come from, who is helping build it today, and the women who will help determine where it goes next.
Ruqayya Alqaydi is an associate editor with an endless curiosity to learn. Like a journalist on a caffeine overdrive, she is fuelled by passion and on a mission to uncover every gem in the UAE.