An Interview with Salma Noor, Intilaaqah Counseling Manager
Intilaaqah is one of Shell’s social development projects in the Sultanate of Oman. It aims at creating awareness of the importance of entrepreneurship as a source of income and encourages the creation of small & medium enterprises.
Salma Noor, Counseling Manager at Intilaaqah. She has been working for Intilaaqah since its inception in 1995. Intilaaqah is a non for profit program based on an international program called LiveWIRE based in the United Kingdom. The program operates in 25 countries around the world. The program was firstly introduced in the Middle East in the Sultanate of Oman. It was presented as a gift from Shell to the nation during the 25th Renaissance celebration.
Intilaaqah offers business skills training, counseling services for start-up businesses and organizes a national annual entrepreneurship awards. To date, the program has served more than 5,300 nationals offering various workshops and training programs.
Salma earned Economic and Political Science degree in Jordan University in 1991. After graduation Salma worked for the Ministry of Commerce as an economic researcher from 1991 to 1996. Her role was to evaluate business plans for industrial and tourism projects. In 1996, she joined Intilaaqah when it was firs launched. As a Counseling Manager, she has the responsibility of reviewing trainee’s business plans; provide guidance and counseling for start-up businesses; assist the program Managing Director in preparing the organizational strategy; act as a liaison between the entrepreneurs and relevant public & private sector organizations and handling other functional daily tasks.
“Its an exciting working with a leading multinational organization “Shell”. Being one of Shell employees, I get the opportunity to work with people from with divers backgrounds and expertise. Working for Intilaaqah specifically allows me to stay close to entrepreneurs and understand their needs. Whenever I get a phone call from one of them telling me that they are progressing well with their business it gives me a sense of achievement” Salma said
The program has been running for more than 12 years and has managed until the end of 2007 to train more than 5,300 nationals in various business skills areas. A great deal of them still manages successful businesses in their respective fields. “With the number of trainees increasing, I would find it difficult to remember the name of each person who has gone through our training courses. However, I can remember faces. Recently I met one of those who have been through our program 8 years back. Little that I knew that, Zahir Al Mazrouei has now expanded his business and he is participating in major tenders.”
Apart from the responsibilities women have at work, they have a greater responsibility at home. Salma share with us that keeping a work life balance is not an easy task specially when you have young children that require immediate attention. However, working with a professional organizations that values the role the staff plays at home, I manage to balance between the two lives.”
Salma also adds “The working environment is always perceived as a place for men, the same way kitchen is perceived as a place for women. However, everyone knows that they are great male chefs around the world. Another field that men have prevailed in is fashion design. The point I am trying to make here is that some jobs should be looked at from the point of the skill sets required instead of gender.”
Aside from the role women play in the working environment, we asked Salma of what she thoughts about women entrepreneurs. Salma said “Don’t be surprised if I told you that the majority of our trainees are women. Out of all of those who have benefited from our services women represent a little more than 60%.”
“We found women to be more passionate about their business than men. While men in the majority of cases will look at the cash value, women tend to look at the sense of achievement and the joy they get from practicing that particular project.”
Salma further commented, that many youngsters are now twinkling with the idea of starting and managing their own businesses. However, they are some things they need to keep in mind. Firstly they need to have a passion for that project and a strong desire to accomplish a certain predefined target, they got to assess themselves and decide if they have what it takes to accomplish that particular project, they need to evaluate the market and the surrounding around them, they got to have proper plan to execute their thoughts, they would also need to keep in mind that nothing happens over night and they have got to dedicate their time towards the success of this project.”
