July/August 1995, pg. 56

Oman: A Model for All Developing Nations

Rayya Saif Al-Riyami: A Dedicated Omani Volunteer

By Richard H. Curtiss

Ms. Rayya Al-Riyami comes from one of Oman's established families with roots in the Jebal Al-Akhdar (Green Mountain) area. Unlike most of her contemporaries--male and female--in Oman, where a school system was established only 25 years ago, she also has an excellent education obtained when she was sent to the United Kingdom by her family. She could, therefore, have settled for a quiet and comfortable life among the numerous members of her family and childhood friends now living in Oman's capital.

Instead, she has chosen to run a travel business,* hold a government job and devote all of her spare time to helping the women of her country, which in only 25 years has emerged from feudalism to enter the ranks of developed countries in what may be the fastest transformation in the world. Although just as many girls as boys now enter Oman's primary schools, some traditional families still prefer their daughters to marry while still in their teen years.

Rayya Al-Riyami concentrates her efforts on building up the self-image of Omani women to help those who wish to continue their studies and learn a profession to resist pressures to conform to societal norms of a by-gone time. In pursuit of this goal, she also has been for the past few years director of Oman's Girl Guides, which is a regular government job.

When Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al-Said established a Majlis al-Shura (consultative council) to advise him and to convey to him popular sentiments from different parts of the country, Ms. Al-Riyami was one of the few women who stood for election. Under current procedures, three candidates are elected from each district, of whom one or two are appointed by Oman's ruler to the Majlis al-Shura. Although Rayya Al-Riyami's campaign was not successful, two other women were appointed to the Council, where both now are serving.

The Omani Women's Association, whose board of directors is elected by a secret ballot, now absorbs much of her time. Started in 1970, the same year in which Sultan Qaboos assumed power and began Oman's rush to modernity, the Association has 16 separate branches in all parts of Oman. In the Muscat capital area, it is housed in a modern building constructed for it at the expense of the Sultan's mother. Its president is Her Highness Sayyida Daa'd bint Shihab Al-Said.

Although activities of the different branches vary in accordance with the needs of Oman's population and the environment, all concentrate on long-term educational and health programs. Among them are training to improve the health of women and children and short-term courses in such subjects as computer skills, English (which has become Oman's second language after Arabic), cookery and nutrition, domestic science and planning, and birth spacing. In all of these activities the Women's Association receives close cooperation from the Omani government's ministries of education, and health and social affairs.

Pressed on birth spacing techniques, which are as sensitive a subject in Muslim countries as in the West, Ms. Al-Riyami explains that although Oman's birthrate is one of the highest in the world, the subject is approached as a maternal health rather than a population concern. The Association encourages women to continue nursing their children for two to two and a half years as a natural method of birth spacing, but the Omani government has no objection to other contraception measures as well, provided they are prescribed by a physician. Strictly banned, however, is abortion, except in cases where the mother's life is in danger.

A principal activity of the Women's Association in this regard is conducting workshops for men! There is no problem in convincing women that for the sake of their health they must space their children, according to Ms. Riyami. She reports major success in attracting men to 10-day Seeb region workshops, and eliciting their cooperation once the importance of the matter is explained to them.

In the Muscat Women's Association a priority project is a program for handicapped children, a personal concern of Ms. Riyami, who has no children of her own. She has recruited volunteers, many of whom come in one day a week to lend a hand to give mothers of handicapped children more time to devote to their homes and normally developing children. Among the volunteers are a few non-Omanis, including an American professor at the Sultan Qaboos University, Linda Laube, formerly of the University of Illinois. She helps out at least one afternoon a week.

The U.S. Embassy in Muscat has recognized Ms. Al-Riyami's extraordinary dedication to the women of her country by sending her to the United States for visits to centers doing similar health and educational work. (It also has sent to the U.S. both women currently serving in Oman's Majlis al-Shura.

Such visits, Ms. Al-Riyami says, help Oman's leaders examine what other countries are doing in their fields, and adopt, adapt or reject programs on the basis of Oman's needs. In addition to her direct efforts, Rayya Al-Riyami also is influencing Omani modernization indirectly in a perhaps even more lasting way.

As one of the few Omanis of her age who received an education in the United Kingdom that has fitted her to play a major leadership role in her country's development, she is a role model to the young Omani women in their mid-20s who now are emerging by the thousands from Oman's national university. Properly motivated, they can play a significant role in Oman's national life. By her energetic and generous example, Rayya Al-Riyami is showing younger Omani women the way.

Richard H. Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.