Power in collaboration

"Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” – Henry Ford

This rings true for what we have been able to achieve as the Alumni in the United Arab Emirates. At the beginning of the year when Ms. Christelle Cronje approached me to serve as the Chairperson for the Alumni Association for the UAE, I was very reluctant as I had several things on my plate and were not sure what was expected. It was after a couple of calls to some colleagues I decided to take up the challenge being reassured by the alumni office of their support and encouragement from Dr. Shaun Voster. Dr. Shaun Voster who is no stranger to many has worked for many years in the UAE and was appointed as one of the Executives on the Board of South African Business Council (SABCO) in United Arab Emirates.

We saw the opportunity to collaborate and formed a partnership. We shortly thereafter onboarded committee members and through the partnership with SABCO the USB will be participating in Dubai Expo 2021. Expo 2020 is scheduled to be a World Expo to be hosted by Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, originally scheduled for 20 October 2020 – 10 April 2021. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Arab Emirates, the new dates are 1 October 2021 – 31 March 2022.

We are so proud of the partnership that was created and once again this is testament of the power of collaboration. Thank you, Dr. Shaun Vorster for seeing the possibilities and being a campion for collaboration. We look forward to share with you some of the pictures of upcoming events.

Dr Candice Booysen

USB AA Chapter Chairperson, UAE