KUALA LUMPUR: Sixteen-year-old Majd Muhammad Asiri is no ordinary Saudi Arabian girl.
Hailing from the Saudi city of Ta’if, Majd – a motivational speaker and trainer – hopes to be an inspiration to other young people, especially teenagers.
“I am a motivational speaker and a development trainer who shares stories and experiences.
“I tell the development journey of myself and how they (audiences) can be like me, because I want to be a great leader, and I want them to have a role model,” she told Bernama International News Service, here, recently.
Majd Muhammad Asiri shows her book during the interview with Bernama International News Service at Wisma Bernama. — Bernama photo
Since 2013, Majd has been giving talks and lectures in various countries including the United States, South Korea, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Malaysia.
This is Majd’s third visit to Malaysia where she had been giving talks at several places including Multimedia University (MMU) in Melaka.
Her first and second visit to Malaysia – in 2014 and 2016 – also involved presentations at MMU Melaka.
Majd’s talks cover many areas of interests such as human development, public speaking, and reading techniques, and her audiences are mostly young people and tertiary institutions’ students.
Majd, who began her journey by launching an English language series on YouTube, also gave Arabic language lessons via the channel.
“I started learning (English) when I was eight, by myself, at home through the internet, and became fluent in two months.
“I had a clear background (focus) because no one told me it was hard or impossible,” she said.
At the age of nine, she has already opened her own classroom in her father’s house, teaching her friends and neighbours English, and appeared on TV stations like Al Watan.
And together with the help of her siblings, they founded the Alpha 71 Academy – an institution to train and empower youths.
Elaborating, Majd said her pursuit, however, is uncommon among Saudi Arabian women, who – in her opinion – must be empowered with knowledge.
“The government has done some improvements for Saudi women, yet they (women) are unaware of it and lacking enough knowledge about their own safety and rights.
Sometimes, when you are not educated, it will affect you and all actions you do will have negative effects on your family and country”, she added.
Therefore, Majd pursued her passion despite the odds in order to be the best she can be and hope that it inspires Saudi women to change.
“Sometimes it affects us, seeing media talking wrongly about us (the women) because what is actually going on is different than what most people think,” quipped Majd.
For this reason, her mission is to help change people for the better in order for her country to improve, especially in the areas of humanity and human development field.
“I want to be a great person that people like, that actually helps others and contribute to humanity globally, not just Saudi Arabia.
“What I care most is about how I’m going to influence people rather than where I’m going to be,” she concluded. — Bernama