To our esteemed leadership, and to Her Highness Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, the Mother of the Nation.

Some things we feel are greater than our ability to express them, and my gratitude to this nation is one of them.

I grew up seeing open doors before me, available opportunities, and a trust in Emirati women that, from how used to it we had become, seemed almost ordinary.

But today, standing before a dream that carries my name, I realize that none of this was ordinary.

Behind my ability to dream, to work, to begin again, and to create something that resembles me… is a nation that believed in me before I ever asked it to.

Behind every step I took with confidence is a leadership that let a daughter of the Emirates grow up never asking: am I allowed to dream? but rather asking herself: how far can I reach?

And behind this journey was the Mother of the Nation; believing in women, supporting them, seeing them as the heart of the family and a partner in the nation, until what once began as a vision… became a reality we live today.

This is why I did not choose Emirati Women's Day by chance to open Shama Al Ali.

I wanted the moment I placed my name on my dream for the first time to fall on a day that reminds me of who gave me the space to dream it at all.

This project may be a small step, but to me it carries years of passion, of attempts, of fear, of hope, and of the courage I needed to finally say: this is my dream… and it is time to begin it.

And when this year's theme came, "We rise stronger and better," it felt as though it described exactly what I want this beginning to be.

I do not begin because I have arrived, but because I still want to learn, to grow, to offer the most beautiful of what I have, and to rise with every step stronger and better than I was yesterday.

Shama Al Ali is not, to me, merely a project I open, but a small trace of the great imprint this nation has left within me.

And if one day I can make of this dream something to be proud of, I will always know that it began here; in a nation that embraced my ambition, under a leadership that trusted its daughter, and on the path of the Mother of the Nation, who taught us that whenever a woman is given trust and space… she gives her nation manyfold in return.

On Emirati Women's Day, I do not only say: I am proud to be an Emirati woman.

I say, from my heart:

Thank you for making me proud of what I can become. And thank you that a dream carrying my name was able to see the light in a nation that carries all our dreams.

And from here I begin… and God willing, we will rise stronger and better.