On Saturday 18th April, Sheikha Sheikha Al Thani granted an exclusive interview with the wonderful The State of Women Radio Show for just short of an hour.

Sheikha had been approached especially by the weekly radio show for this interview, which is a great honor considering it has an average audience of 5.6 million listeners around the globe.

Based in Phoenix, Arizona Women INVESTING in Women and Girls is produced and broadcast by young women and teenage girls between the ages of 16-19. The show focuses on Global Women’s Issues from the perspectives of young women with interviewees including leading women in politics, business, academia, non-profits, media, and culture, which is why SATUC founder Sheikha fitted the bill so perfectly. The show was created to engage the voices of women who are redefining gender equality by shaping the minds of young women and men engaged in this important global dialogue.

Both radio host Michelle Jaffee and Sheikha herself greatly enjoyed the interview and said what a wonderful experience it had been. That they were able to speak so comfortably and fluently for just short of an hour is a testament to Sheikha’s abilities to speak eloquently, to entertain, and above all to build rapport with people regardless of age, background, and gender.

The interview began with Ms. Jaffee asking Sheikha about her background and what had inspired her to take up her charitable missions. Sheikha explained how it was her humbling experiences of encountering poverty at a young age, which set her on this path; touched by the dignity of those living in poverty, Sheikha told of how she was determined to use her privileged life to be a force for good in the world. Sheikha related how, undeterred by her young age, she started her charity work aged just 4 and has never looked back since.

This has resulted most recently in Sheikha setting up her own charity, Sheikha Al Thani for Uniting Children (SATUC) two years ago, whose flagship project, the 2015 SATUC Cup, will be launched in August later this year. She spoke movingly of the importance of her charitable missions not stopping at borders and how if we are to solve the problem of poverty as a global community we cannot afford to differentiate between race, gender, or nationality.

She also underlined the importance of giving children the fun they deserve and of not allowing the extremely challenging circumstances in which many of them find themselves to ruin their lives before they have even properly started.

Sheikha recalled some of the visits she has made to sick children in makeshift hospitals around the world (including one especially harrowing trip to a Sudanese hospital) and how this impressed upon her indelibly the need to support these children and hospitals who do the best they can while working with very little.

One of the main topics of conversation was of course the two upcoming SATUC projects, namely the 2015 SATUC Cup and the SATUC Sports School for Underprivileged Children and Orphans (SSSUCO) which Sheikha spoke about in great detail and with plenty of passion. Sheikha also raised the possibility of an American team participating in the 2015 SATUC Cup, which Ms. Jaffee wholeheartedly supported and offered to put all the show’s resources at Sheikha’s disposal to make this happen.

Other topics included Sheikha’s life work so far, the need for humanitarian aid throughout the world, but also in one’s own country, and words of advice from Sheikha to any young female listeners to inspire them to follow their dreams and not to be discouraged by what others may think is possible of you.

The interview will be listed here on Friday evening:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/women-investing-in-women-girls/id847188403?mt=2

Once the show has been recorded it gets saved to the show’s iTunes library where it is accessible to anyone around the world for free, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – we hope as many of you will tune in as possible!