Founding Tashkeil was a natural extension of all of my passions – law, culture, creativity, empowerment, global mindset, and civic duty. The platform emerged from my genuine interest and passion for achieving sustainable and long-lasting societal change in the Arab world.

 

I was the first woman to be permitted to practice law as a fully-fledged lawyer in Saudi Arabia after years of an uphill battle and bureaucratic hurdles. My struggle cemented my determination for the field but also, it's potential to serve as powerful tools to help people.

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While working as an IP lawyer, I saw the opportunity to help designers and artists in the creative sector after seeing first-hand where creatives needed the most help. I witnessed a concurring trend that was apparent in all my cases, nearly all creatives had signed contracts that had provisions that were unfair for them. After analysing the trend further, I realised the problem was two-fold. The first one was the issue of awareness and understanding of legal contracts and business know-how. The second one was related to the nature of IP as it is difficult to decipher the many layers of its complexities.

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To counteract this, I began conducting workshops focusing on raising awareness on IP for people in the creative industries. It is this idea of giving creatives the tools to understand their situation, and opportunities to better their situation that remains the ethos of Tashkeil.

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As far as our achievements go, one of our main successes was to build a strong network in the early stages of our operation. We continue to grow our partnerships and have created and continue to maintain a broad database. In our ten years, we have supported more than 5,000 creatives.