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عناوين المجلة |
السيرة الذاتية لرئيس التحرير |
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المركز الرئيسي :
الجمهورية اليمنية - تعز -
حوض الأشراف - جوار مكتب اليمنية
هاتف : 217156 - 04 - 00967
فاكس : 217157 - 04 - 00967
ص . ب : 55534 تعـز
البريد الإلكتروني :
info@al-osra.net
بريد رئيس التحرير : editor@al-osra.net
مكاتب فروع المجلة :
مكتب صنعاء :
هاتف : 514041 - 01 - 00967
فاكس : 268276 - 01 - 00967
مكتب عدن :
هاتف : 347057 - 02 - 00967
فاكس : 347056 - 02 - 00967
مكتب الحديدة :
جوال : 733684558
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الاسم:
عماد احمد عبدا لله السقاف
من مواليد: 1976م
محافظة تعز . قرية (الحضارم - اديم ) الحجرية
المناصب:
* رئيس تحرير ومؤسس مجلة الأسرة و التنمية ( أول مجلة
يمنية تعنى بشؤون الأسرة) حالياً
* مؤسس و مدير مكتبي مؤسسة يمن تايمز للصحافة والطباعة
والنشر فيالحديدة
و تعز حاليا
.
*المسئول المالي والإداري لنقابة الصحفيين اليمنيين بتعز (حاليا)
.
العضويات
:
ـ عضو نقابه الصحفيين اليمنيين
ـ عضو اتحاد الصحفيين العرب
ـ عضو في منظمة الصحفيين العالمية
ـ عضو في جمعية الصداقة اليمنية
الأمريكية .
ـ عضو الهيئة الإدارية لجمعية الحضارم الخيرية بالشمايتين
.
ـ رئيس لجنة الإعلام لمناصرة المرأة في اتحاد نساء اليمن .
ـ المشاركات والأعمال المنشورة:
ـ كتب أكثر من 400 مقال وتقرير وتحقيق صحفي في عدد من
الصحف الرسمية والأهلية والحزبية.
ـ شاركت بمؤتمرات وندوات داخليه وخارجية عديدة
ـ عضو مجلس تنسيق مشروع دعم تعليم الفتاة بتعز .
الإصدارات المنشورة:
الإصدارات
ـ إعداد أول دليل سياحي لمحافظة اب - العاصمة السياحية
لليمن( معد وصاحب الفكرة)
ـ إعداد أول دليل سياحي لمحافظة الحديدة ( معد وصاحب فكرة)
ـ إعداد أول دليل ملاحي في اليمن .
ـ إعداد أول دليل توعوي للجودة في اليمن بالتنسيق مع
الهيئة العامة للمواصفات
ـ إعداد الدليل التجاري والصناعي لمحافظة تعز بالاشتراك مع
الغرفة التجارية و الصناعية بتعز
ـ ملحق ( يمن 22مايو ) الذي يصدر في كل عام بمناسبة عيد
الوحدة اليمنية.
الدراسات:
ـ الايدز في اليمن مقدمة في ندوة نظمتها .
ـ دراسة مصغره عن الصحافة الأهلية في اليمن .
ـ أول درسه واستبيان عن المنتجات الوطنية والمستوردة .
ـ دراسة عن العولمة في اليمن .
ـ دراسة سوق الأوراق المالية في اليمن .
ـ دراسة الخطة الخمسة لليمن ( 99م) إلي 2005م .
ـ دراسة عن منظمات المجتمع المدني في اليمن 2000م .
ـ أول دراسة عن شركات الأموال 0( الأرباح) والتي أثارة
جدلا ايجابي واسع .
ـ مساهم بعدد كبير من الدراسات الاجتماعية والصحية التي
تهم الأسرة والتنمية .
المشاركة السياسية:
الصحفي الوحيد الذي شارك في انتخابات المجالس المحلية
كمرشح مستقل ونافس عدد من الأحزاب اليمنية في عام 2000م في
محافظة تعز .
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Editor in chief of the “Family and Development Magazine”
The first Yemeni magazine for the whole family
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Imad Abdullah Al-Saqqaf |
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 Interviewed
By: Nadia Al-Sakkaf
Emad Abdullah Al-Saqqaf, is the founder and editor
in chief of "Al-Usra wa Al-Tanmya" magazine, translated
into English as "Family and Development Magazine". The
idea for establishing such a magazine specializing in
the Yemeni family was born during his early years in
school. During high school in Al-Hujaria district, Taiz
governorate, Imad began his relationship with the media
through school activities and published, with the help
of friends, "Al-Manar" periodical in which they
discussed various social and cultural topics. That
leaflet received an overwhelmingly positive response
from the students' parents and important personalities
in the area . Paramount among these key figures was the
late Prof.Abdulaziz Al-Saqqaf, founder of Yemen Times,
who developed Al-Manar leaflet, both in printing and
production, and at his own expense.
Through his work as a journalist with Yemen Times and
other newspapers, Imad gained knowledge about Yemeni
family issues and sufferings, especially in the rural
areas, where the majority of the population are located.
He discovered that the solution to family problems was
not found solely in the reporting of their sufferings
but rather by educating them so that they could change
the wrong ideologies which had formed in their minds
over the years. And it was from here that the idea of
establishing a constructive magazine targeting Yemeni
families and their issues came about.
The mission and importance:
The Magazine's mission is to enable the Yemeni family to
know and understand its rights in all aspects of life in
order that it can enhance its role in the development of
society as a whole. The magazine especially targets
Yemeni women who do not have access to other media
outlets, particularly as there are no local magazines
with which they can identify which could help to get rid
of those prevailing social misconceptions that hinder
development and freedoms.
Since Yemen is the least developed country in this
region, education is very important in speeding up this
development process. Yemeni families, especially the
women, need a source of information that will educate
them and help them to improve their lives. For example,
field studies indicate that the illiteracy rate among
females in Yemen exceeds 80%. They also indicate that
750 women out of 100.000 die during pregnancy and
delivery due to a lack of health education as well as
early marriage. By augmenting levels of education within
society, these scary numbers could be reduced
significantly. This situation would be reinforced if the
local community could trust in information coming from a
national magazine rather than one coming from abroad,
with its implications of change and the disintegration
of local values due to external influences.
Furthermore, discrimination against females is prevalent
through harmful practices such as female gentile
mutilation, depriving them of their inheritance and
family-based violence on the part of fathers, husbands
and male relatives.
Besides that, society should be aware of the rights of
children and the fight against child labor, something
which is still a growing problem, according to a recent
report made by the Committee of Human Rights, Freedom
and Civil Society and the Yemeni Shura Council.
The report shows that there are 326,000 child laborers
in Yemen, 44% of whom, suffer from malnutrition. It also
affirms that over 2 million children do not have access
to education as well as 50,000 who were smuggled to
Saudi Arabia during 2006. The apparent reason behind
this is a simple lack of education and the absence of
both the official and the opposition parties' media
outlets input, both concerning themselves rather with
political intrigues and the like.
Therefore, according to Imad Al-Saqqaf, the magazine
came about in order to fill this vacuum; it aims being
to educate the society and eradicate the above-mentioned
dangerous phenomena. It is the first magazine in Yemen
concerned with Yemeni family problems and their future
aspirations, targeting society as a whole and women in
particular. The magazine is distributed within most
Yemeni governorates. It is mostly sold in Taiz Gov.,
which has the highest population of all Yemeni
governorates (3.000.000 inhabitants), followed by
Sana'a, Aden, Al-Hudieda and Ebb.
A magazine about life
“Our responsibility is to form the personality of women
completely. So, through our daily and direct contact
with the readers of the magazine, who are from different
groups, we observe that women should be acquainted with
a lot of the economic and political issues related to
their goals and social problems.” This is what Imad said
regarding the scope of the magazine. The Family and
Development Magazine talks about various issues
including the economy, politics, culture and even the
arts. This wide scope encourages the readers to broaden
their thinking to include all aspects of life. “The
magazine is about life, and all which is included in
life” says Imad, who further added, “It's true that
women don't interact with some political issues.
Nevertheless, we find these issues are important because
of their relation to daily life. On the other hand, some
of these topics are raised deliberately in order to
attract the attention of male readers, since men play an
essential part in womens' issues and ,therefore, we
should gain their interaction through the magazine .”
Challenging social taboos
Sometimes, the magazine's editorial staff face negative and embarrassing
reactions as a result of some of the daring topics they
publish. “We have even received
 death threats. For
instance, the magazine issued an interview with Miriam Fariss, an artist, and her photo was put on the magazine
cover. Gulf magazines consider such interviews as
precious. Later, a man called from Sana'a threatening me
and warning against issuing such photos. He also
demanded that I should withdraw the rest of the issue
from the market or I would be murdered.. After that,
someone broke the window of my car.” Explained Imad.
The magazine probes further into the deep texture of
Yemeni society and hence, the staff encounter a lot of
embarrassing situations upon conducting sensitive social investigations and polls, because women often refuse to
identify themselves or their social status, as this is
considered by some as crossing 'red lines'. “It seems
normal for women to act in this way because they are
afraid of the traditions imposed upon them by the
society,” He said.
Nevertheless, Imad continues to direct the magazine to
address such issues and offer solutions to them. Unless
they do, the problems will become further aggravated and
become increasingly serious. Imad believes it is his
duty as the editor of the first Yemeni social magazine
to reveal such taboo topics so that society can take
steps towards working around them.
Difficult times
The magazine faces a lot of obstacles. For example, the
Yemeni government doesn’t cooperate with the press in
general, and the family press in particular .So, Imad
explained that at the magazine they find it difficult to
get the information needed for some topics. In addition,
as the magazine's specialization is a new one, he needs
to use information based on research and needs also to
cooperate with specialists based at Yemeni universities,
because such research is not yet readily available.
Talking about this he says, “Unfortunately, we don’t
have research centers which can provide us with
information regarding our society, and the Yemeni
universities are not cooperative because economic
problems have turned them into merely lecture-delivering
centers and political platforms, not research centers
that discuss people's issues and give solutions.
Moreover, we don’t have a female staff specialized in
social affairs because the Yemeni pressmen don't
interact with female issues on the one hand, and they
lack the rehabilitation and specialization skills on the
other.”
Another problem the magazine faces is the politicization
of the media in Yemen, as Yemeni pressmen seem overly
preoccupied with political issues. Also, social
traditions don’t allow women to express their opinions.
Consequently, access to the problems of women is indeed
a thorny issue.
There also exist technical and financial problems,
making it difficult to maintain the magazine's high
quality levels for which they continually strive.
Furthermore, the income raised from advertizing is so
small that it barely contributes to covering expenses.
Imad considers that the private sector in Yemen doesn’t
realize the vital importance of such advertisements and,
therefore, they pay so little in comparison to the Gulf
Countries where advertisements are expensive, and hence
sufficient to cover the cost of publication.
The future
Imad has many dreams and ambitions for the magazine,
although he is continually forced to face ironic and
rather funny situations everyday. “An ironic event we
faced recently was when one of the service offices
conducted a questionnaire to assess magazines in Yemen
.Our magazine proved to be the best according to the
questionnaire. That office then demanded a sum of money
to publish the results of the questionnaire but we
refused to pay because we are fully committed to
maintaining our credibility.”
Such situations make him feel that Yemeni society needs
a lot of work I order to be able to appreciate such a
magazine. He specifically hopes to increase the
regularity of the magazine to twice a month, and to
publish it in English so that it could be distributed
throughout other foreign and Western countries also.
Imad did not forget children in his plans and
consequently hopes to publish a periodical supplement
especially for children. Technology also has a share in
his ambitions for the magazine, “We are working on
enhancing the magazine's current website, which already
has a lot of readers, and has daily news and updates on
it.”
Concluding the interview, Imad Al-Saqqaf commented: “I
hope that the bodies and organizations involved with
such family issues cooperate with us to achieve our
goals that can help to serve the family. We also hope
that the Yemeni Government will fulfill the promises
made during the previous elections and save the Yemeni
family from desperate situations as well as making
democratic initiatives a reality.
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Magazine Conspectus
Name: Development
and Family Magazine
Date of Issue: Monthly
publication
Head Office: Taiz
City, Republic of Yemen
Founded on: October,
2003
Description: A local specialized magazine. (The 1st
Yemeni enlightening, cultural, social and developmental
magazine focused primarily on family and development.
Editor-in-chief:
Emad Ahmed Abdullah Al-Saqqaf
The magazine was founded in October, 2003 and the first
issue was published on October. Sine then, the magazine
has been published on a monthly basis.
Despite of insufficiency of funds and personal efforts
that made, the magazine’s success story has been
successfully achieved that serving its main mission.
Within a short period of time of its inception, the
magazine has been steadily gaining popularity and wide
circulation at a nationwide level and could some
countries in the Horn of Africa.
The magazine has a proven track record in raising
social-related awareness towards developmental and
social issues raised constantly.
Currently, the magazine forms a kernel for a greater
developmental project to set up a family development
center to disseminate and raise social awareness and
family-related notions.
Magazine’s Mission
Embowering families to get their rights in education and
health fields as well as raising awareness among
families to be active members to develop their
societies.
Embowering woman to practice democratic and political
rights as she represents the highest percentage in
electoral register.
It is essential to raise awareness among local
communities to get rid of prevalent traditional
attitudes towards woman and eliminate social negative
phenomena that hinder her major role as she is the
pillar of the community in every sense of the world.
Its Major Role
The significance of the magazine lies with the fact that
it is published and circulated in less developed
countries where rampant illiteracy phenomenon has been
widely spread particularly among females.
Field surveys have pointed out that the illiteracy
percentage in Yemen among women has exceeded 80% and it
has really posed a threat for majority of woman for the
age group ranging from 15 to 45, which is the age of
pregnancy, delivery and its symptoms due to lack of
awareness and proper hygiene conditions. Early marriages
in our society pose another serious problem that
threatens girls-related social and health conditions.
In addition to this, other negative phenomena have
spread in our community such as female circumcision and
disinheritance, domestic violence by parents, husbands
and relatives.
The magazine has been seeking to raise awareness among
people to get rid of those negative phenomena. This is
made crystal-clear when a focus of the attention is
given by the magazine to raise awareness of the child’s
rights and prevent child labor that spread menacingly.
Official reports indicate that there is around 326.000
working children in our society and about 44% are
suffering from malnutrition. Death rates have reached
100 cases for 1000. The report also has disclosed that
more that 50.000 of Yemeni children haven’t joined
schools. According to UNICEF statistics, around 50.000
children have been smuggled to Saudi Arabia during the
year 2006.
Consequently, the issue of child labor in Yemen has been
raised by the
magazine and could make their voices heard by means of
raising awareness among the concerned bodies.
Magazine’s
view
The view objective of the magazine stems from the
necessity to alter traditional and cultural modes of
conducts that hinder community development and reshape
it in accordance with development and growth.
Objectives and tasks stated herein have been covered by
the magazine:
1. Raising awareness of social and negative familial
phenomena
2. Identifying and raising awareness of the social
gender issues
3. Embowering woman to get her basic rights socially,
politically and culturally
4. Enhancing and raising awareness of human rights
5. Raising health-related awareness particularly in
reproductive health along with introducing a variety of
health and medical consultations of highly specialized
doctors
6. Alleviating poverty and empowering girls to have an
easy access to education and health aspects as well as
disseminating educational notions that help developing
their perceptions in self-management
7. Eliminating domestic violence
8. Raising awareness of the great significance of social
integration and working to empower marginalized classes
to get their basic rights
9. Offering legal assistance to empower families to get
their political and social rights
Obftacles Faced .. Continuous
Success
Obftacles the Magazine faces :
First: Being the 1st Yemeni magazine that focuses on
social development and pays much of its attention to
domestic affairs in general and woman in particular.
Being an underdeveloped country and
politically-oriented, Yemen has been indulging in bitter
wrangles in political issues at the expanse of other
developmental aspects. The magazine has thus come into
existence to fill that gab
Second: Being the first Yemeni magazine focusing on
developmental issues in a closed society like Yemen
where women’s progress in such society has been still
hampered by male chauvinism.
Lively but interesting issues are dealt by the magazine
and therefore they have been still perceived as
embarrassing, offensive, forbidden or taboo. If for
instance, a star singer’s snapshot has been published at
the cover page, it is perceived as shameful.
The magazine has been courageously encompassing
sensitive issues raised and could in a short period of
time gain credibility of the public.
We are determined to achieve the desired goals for all
Yemenis and that of the magazine’s mission. All these
occurred after putting obstacles in the way of the
magazine either from the state, hardliners, or ossified
individuals. Even mosques platforms have been used
against us and we have been labeled as disbelievers and
indicted for circulating open culture to the public. We
have also received death threats and the car glasses
belongs to its editor-in-chief have been smashed.
Third: Being possessed by dogged determination, we are
trying hard to display the magazine in an artistic
style. The magazine is highly produced, family-oriented,
offset printing as well as taking careful consideration
of the reader’s psychological mood. Those arrangements
are preplanned and constitutes a heavy burden for the
Magazine.
We face exorbitant costs with the purpose of ensuring
great publication desired by our readers.
The magazine is considered one of the bestsellers and
could compete against Gulf-based magazines. Our readers
abroad are surprised to see its fantastic contents and
this has been clearly sensed during my recent visits to
those countries.
The number of readers are on the rise and more than
10.000 copies are printed.
The latest opinion polls show that the number of readers
for each copy have been ranging from 3 to 5. But we find
a difficulty to augment the number of the magazine’s
quantity. This is because, the price of the copy totals
$ 2 while it is sold at the rate of 70 cents. In
addition to this, the absence of the art of advertising
on the part of the private sector is another unbearable
problem and that our government is unaware of
private-owned magazines and only supports its-owned
press either directly or indirectly
Fourth: A number of incidents and issues of public
interest are raised by the magazine and could draw the
attention of the official governmental bodies to tackle
such issues. Immediate decisions and initiatives have
been soon taken by the government such as:
1. In its issue No. (12), December, 2004, a reportage on
agricultural insecticides claiming lives of innocent
victims. The publication of such incident has pushed the
government to adopt immediate actions and review its
laws regarding the illegal trafficking of insecticides
to its lands.
2. In its issue No. (16), June, 2005, the magazine in
its reportage succeeded in disclosing door-to-door
contrabands by means of exploiting girls to do the job.
The reportage uncovered smugglers, the matter which
target our staff by those smugglers.
3. In its issue No. (24), March, an editorial titled
(Death Voices at Nursery Schools) uncovered unsuitable
practices performed by some teachers while teaching
religious lessons and haven’t included in the main
curriculum.
The implantations of such ideas into our students’
brains will pave the way for fertile brains of our new
generation. This reportage has caused a complete turmoil
at the Ministry of Education to review and supervise the
application of curriculum.
4. In its issue No. (23), 2006, the magazine
courageously dealt with children’s kidnapping incident
in the City of Taiz in a very transparent manner.
Dealing with such issue, aroused interest for the
government and could enabled our officials to pay more
of their attention to track down kidnappers of Hanan in
their hideouts.
In suspicious circumstances, another child’s corpse was
found after extensive coverage for the latter incident.
5. In its issue No, (33), December, 2006, the magazine
concentrated on International Human Rights Day and dealt
with human rights situation in Yemen. The report also
interviewed the Minister of Human Rights revolving on
health rights of citizens as well as the ministry’s
failure to perform its duties.
In its editorial of the same issue, we uncovered
transgressions against human rights particularly prisons
belong to Sheikhs, (influential clans).
By publishing such issues, we have been encountered by
vehement attacks and harassments by security men and
sheikhs. The Ministry of Human Rights in its turn
convened a meeting to reactivate the key role of the
Ministry of Human Rights towards those transgressions.
The aforementioned issues are just simple ones raised
constantly by
the magazine and positively have contributed to raise
awareness among the public of domestic and
social-related issues.
Tangible results pertaining to female circumcision have
been brought and easily assimilated by the public. The
magazine dealt with such issues from different angles
and has a strong echo. Domestic and social awareness
raised by the magazine has positively contributed to
form a real social awareness among families.
Another example has been concentrated by the magazine of
high increase of dowry and a call has been raised to
facilitate getting married among youths and that is what
has been actually happens.
Fifth: Despite of difficulties faced, we will continue
in our track. Among those difficulties is the
unwillingness of the government to cooperate with press
segment in general and domestic-oriented press in
particular. There is a difficulty in providing enough
information while performing our job.
Other difficulties faced by press sector is the absence
of female journalists in social issues as well the high
augmentation of printing costs. |
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