I have been reminded that today is the birthday of Jordan’s Queen Rania. She turns forty today.
What a queen. She has a YouTube channel that she uses to fight religious intolerance, she writes books* for children that empower girls and bring people of different cultures closer together, and now she twitters. (bio: A mum and a wife with a really cool day job…)
Near and dear to my heart, she has also taken on the controversial issue of child abuse. Wikipedia:
The Jordan River Children Program (JRCP) was developed by Queen Rania to place children’s welfare above political agendas and cultural taboos. This led to the launch, in 1998, of JRF’s Child Safety Program, which addresses the immediate needs of children at risk from abuse and initiated a long-term campaign to increase public awareness about violence against children. The deaths of two children in Amman as a result of child abuse in early 2009 led Queen Rania to call for an emergency meeting of government and non-government (including JRF) stakeholders to discuss where the system was failing.
Looking at her sizable wikipedia article, I also see she has a Norwegian award, the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav. But this line in the explanation of the award stopped me up short:
The list is collated alphabetically by last name, those recipients not possessing a last name, such as royalty and most Icelanders are collated by first name.
I never thought about it before, but royals are certainly in the classification of people who only need one name–Cher, Liberace, Twiggy, Elvis…..
But Icelanders?
(Thanks, Jake.)
*books:
The Sandwich Swap. (Amazon) Tells the story of Lily and Salma, two best friends, who argue over the ‘yucky’ taste of their respective peanut butter and jelly and hummus sandwiches. The girls then overcome and embrace their differences.
Maha of the Mountains. A young girl’s determination to get an education and the challenges she faced. (read online)