THE NATIONAL (17/11/2019)
Sitting at her desk in one of her three offices in Amman, Rana Dajani says she wears many hats – or rather, many scarves. “I am a mother, a teacher, a scientist, a social entrepreneur and a feminist. But instead of hats I wear scarves,” says Dajani, who sees hers as a metaphor for her many different roles.
A mother of four, Dajani gave birth to her youngest daughter a day after the interview that granted her a Fulbright scholarship to do a PhD in the United States. The molecular biologist was named one the most influential women scientists in the Islamic world and ranked among the 100 most powerful Arab women.
Also a social entrepreneur, Dajani is the founder of an award-winning initiative based in Amman that aims to spread the love of reading. Through this, her team want to ensure every neighbourhood in Jordan has a library.
“Reading did a lot to make me a change-maker and to think outside the box,” says Dajani, who has always been a book-lover and avid reader. But when she returned to Jordan in 2005, after getting her doctorate in molecular cell biology at the University of Iowa, she noticed that children weren’t reading for fun.
“The problem was not a lack of books. Jordanians are literate, they read for school and for religion, but it’s a different kind of reading,” she explains. Despite the high literacy rates in the country, she felt that not enough was being done to develop a love of reading.
Being scientifically minded, she tried to understand why reading for pleasure was not a habit and found that it was because many parents didn’t read to their children. “When parents read to their kids, there is an association between security and happiness and reading. Children grow up loving to read,” she says.
To foster reading outside of academic and religious contexts, Dajani started organising “reading aloud circles” for children in her neighbourhood of Amman. Wearing a funny hat and using puppets, her goal was to show young people that books could be fun. She held these sessions over the course of three years, and with the help of her family, tried to create a generation of children who love literature.