Queen Noor celebrates birthday today

AMMAN — Her Majesty Queen Noor celebrates her birthday today.

Her Majesty has been advocating cross-cultural understanding and conflict prevention and recovery issues such as refugees, missing persons, poverty alleviation, climate change and disarmament.  Her peacebuilding work has focused on the Middle East, the Balkans, Central and Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa, according to a statement. 

Queen Noor’s work in Jordan and the Arab world has focused on national and regional human security in the areas of education, conservation, sustainable development, human rights and cross-cultural exchange. 

Since 1979, the initiatives of the Noor Al Hussein Foundation and, since 1999, the King Hussein Foundation (KHF), which she founded and chairs, have “advanced development thinking in Jordan and the Middle East through pioneering best-practice programmes in the fields of poverty eradication, women’s empowerment, microfinance, health and arts as a medium for social and cross-cultural exchange. The foundations provide training and capacity-building expertise in these areas in the broader Arab and Asian regions”.

In 1984, Queen Noor assumed responsibility for the implementation of an educational project to commemorate His Majesty King Hussein’s 1977 Silver Jubilee. She launched the Jubilee Institute and Jubilee School — an independent co-educational secondary institution which opened in 1993 to develop the academic and leadership potential of outstanding scholarship students from the country and the region.  

Meanwhile, the Jubilee Institute’s Centre for Excellence in Education “advances national and regional educational standards through the development of innovative curricula and training programmes”.

To contribute to poverty alleviation and promotion of entrepreneurship, Tamweelcom — the Jordan Micro-Credit Company — was established by the Noor Al Hussein Foundation in 1999 to provide loans to small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs, while Ethmar for Islamic Finance was established in 2015 as Jordan’s first micro-finance institution offering Sharia-compliant financial products. 

The Community Development Programme  is a contributing partner to national efforts in poverty alleviation and capacity building of impoverished families and local community-based organisations through its work in seven poverty pockets areas, and four business incubators in Irbid, Aqaba, Ajloun and Tafileh. 

For its part, the Institute for Family Health has developed over the last three decades from a primary healthcare centre for mothers and children into a “regional leader in psychosocial trauma rehabilitation for victims of violence and a model for comprehensive family healthcare”. 

Queen Noor has also established the Information and Research Centre, to provide evidence-based research using innovative methodologies, to assist practitioners and policymakers in promoting awareness and more effective socioeconomic planning. 

Queen Noor’s cultural initiatives include the Jerash Festival for Culture and Arts, the National Handicrafts Development Project, the National Music Conservatory, and the National Centre for Culture & Arts. 

In 1980, following the Arab summit meeting in Amman, Queen Noor called for an annual meeting of Arab youth, known today as the International Arab Youth Congress, which for over 37 years has brought young people together in Amman from throughout the Arab world and, since 2004, from the international community to promote understanding, tolerance and solidarity. 

The Queen also founded Jordan’s SOS Children’s Villages Association that has established three SOS children villages, in Aqaba, Irbid and Amman, two kindergartens and six youth houses to support the children as they make the transition into independent adulthood. She is an honorary member of the General Assembly of the SOS-Kinderdorf International.

As part of her environmental initiatives, Queen Noor was patron of Jordan’s Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature. She also chaired Jordan’s National Commission in 1990 which developed Jordan’s National Environment Strategy, and consequently Jordan’s first Environment Law which set standards for water use and quality and specifications to measure and control air pollution. 

Last year, in contribution to Jordan’s strategic energy goals, Queen Noor launched the KHF Solar Farm, which feeds green energy to over 30 centres and branches operated by the foundation. 

Queen Noor also chairs King Hussein Foundation International, a US non-profit organisation which supports the work of the King Hussein Foundation, and since 2001, has awarded the King Hussein Leadership Prize to individuals, groups, or institutions that demonstrate inspiring leadership in their efforts to promote sustainable development, human rights, tolerance, social equity and peace. To promote media projects that bridge political and cultural divides, Queen Noor launched a Media and Humanity Programme during New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival. 

A long-time advocate for a just Arab-Israeli peace and for Palestinian refugees, Queen Noor is a board member of Refugees International and an outspoken voice for the protection of civilians in conflict and displaced persons around the world.  

She has also focused extensively on the Balkans since her first humanitarian mission in 1996 to bring aid from Jordan to the survivors of the tragic fall of Srebrenica. She is a Commissioner of the International Commission on Missing Persons.

Since 1995, Queen Noor has been President of the United World Colleges, a network of 17 equal-opportunity international scholarship IB colleges around the world. 

Queen Noor is also a founding leader of Global Zero, an international movement working for the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons, and also has been an adviser to, and global advocate for, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. 

Queen Noor is a Trustee of the Aspen Institute, Adviser to Search for Common Ground and Trust Women — the Thomson Reuters Foundation annual conference aiming to put the rule of law behind women’s rights, a Board Member of America Near East Refugee Aid and Honorary Chair of the McGill Middle East Programme in Civil Society and Peace Building.  

She has also worked with a number of other international organisations advancing global peacebuilding and conflict recovery such as the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Seeds of Peace, Council of Women World Leaders, and Women Waging Peace and as a member of the Pew Global Attitudes Survey International Advisory Board.

She has published two books, “Hussein of Jordan”, and “Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life”, a New York Times best-seller published in 17 languages. 

Her Majesty Queen Noor has four children, Their Royal Highnesses Princes Hamzah and Hashim and Princesses Iman and Raiyah and 9 grandchildren.