Dina Khuffash has spent 25 years in education, and she still remembers hating school as a student. She opens up about being diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, growing up in Jordanian public schools, and how she ended up delivering aid to wounded refugees during the Second Intifada as a 22-year-old with no plan at all, only to be pulled back into education again and again, almost against her own will.

Now General Manager of New Century Education, overseeing eight charter schools and more than 8,000 students across Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, she talks about what it means to treat every student as her own child, why she refuses to place blame on any single part of a broken system, and why she believes rebuilding basic morality, not curriculum, is the real work ahead.

This is a conversation about showing up for people who aren't yours to show up for.We hope you find something to consider.

00:00 — Intro: Education as a mirror of society

02:00 — Her own story: hating school, discovering ADHD, and a career she never chose

11:40 — Volunteering during the Second Intifada, building an aid network at 22

22:00 — Why teachers are undervalued, and the outsized influence they carry

28:00 — Leading school transformation in the UAE, from inspections to charter schools

39:55 — Morality over curriculum, and why "these are my children"

Connect with the Guest:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dinakhuffash/?hl=en

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dina-khuffash/

Website: https://khuffash.me

We sat down with Gianluca Chakra, founder of Front Row Filmed Entertainment, to talk about the invisible machinery behind the stories we watch.

We go beyond the red carpet and into the business of entertainment: how films actually get financed, why distribution deals shape scripts before a single scene is shot, and why the Arab world's biggest challenge isn't ambition or talent, it's ecosystem.

We talk about the myth of pan-Arab representation, why some regional stories travel internationally while others never leave their own market, and what it will take for the Middle East to develop a true creative identity of its own.

This is a conversation about who gets funded, who gets seen, and what it actually takes for a story to travel.

We hope you find something to consider.

Connect with the guest:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gianluca_chakra?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&stkn=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gianluca-chakra-3880b343/

Website: https://www.frontrowent.com

Company Website: https://www.linkedin.com/company/front-row-filmed-entertainment-llc/posts/?feedView=allCompany

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/front_row_films?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&stkn=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

In this episode, we sit down with Sajeda Shawa, Head of OCHA in the UAE, to talk about what it actually takes to carry humanitarian responsibility without becoming numb to it.

We go behind the headlines and into the machinery most people never see — the coordination, the negotiation, the seven hours it can take to get aid onto a plane, and the hundreds of people working around the clock to make that possible.

We talk about the role Dubai Humanitarian plays as the world's largest logistics hub, how crises get prioritized when funding falls short, and why Sajeda believes there's no such thing as life-work balance, only prioritization and a support system. We also trace her path back to her mother and father, and what it means to inherit a sense of duty rather than choose it.

This is a conversation about proximity to crisis, objectivity, and what it means to act instead of scroll past.

We hope you find something to consider.