“Oh! The places you’ll go!” This optimistic quote, by the imaginative Dr. Seuss, foreshadows the places a child will go in their lifetime. It can be interpreted differently by different people and, as I discovered, Reem Atassi is a good example of this quote as she truly embodies its meaning. I met Atassi in a Middle Eastern coffee shop in Cambridge, MA. It was a warm Wednesday and I could smell the steeping of tea as soon as I walked in. The soft hum from the air conditioner was drowned out by the slightly louder playing music. I kept checking the door, turning my head at even the slightest sound, until I saw a woman with short hair and a warm smile walk through. She was determined and seemed to walk through the door with a purpose. We walked down to the lower floor where it was quieter and began the interview. I got comfortable on a red, soft couch and started to listen in on Atassi’s experience moving to the US, her struggle to integrate Arabic into her children’s lives, and her innovation to create new possibilities for education.
Atassi’s upbringing and background is what launched her business. Atassi was born in Syria. She moved to the States when she was nine years old and later studied finance at Georgia Institute of Technology. When Atassi married and had three children, she knew she wanted to integrate Arabic into their lives as a second language but was not having much success with Arabic school. She grasped for other solutions before using self-teaching methods of her own with a friend. She developed lessons and games to make the learning more fun, making sure to instill it in her children. This persistence is an inspiration and shows how determined Atassi is to maintain that part of her culture, despite raising her children in a different country. As Atassi developed these games and methods for teaching, her neighbors quickly became interested as they were intrigued and searching themselves for ways to teach Arabic to their children. At this moment, Atassi and her friend made a business decision to create a board game to make learning Arabic fun and engaging. They worked with a graphic designer and produced Abjad Hawaz, an interactive board game that gives children “the opportunity to utilize [their] tools to maximize their learning experience” (Abjad Hawaz). In English, abjad translates to alphabet, referring to the instruction of Arabic as a language. After, they logged onto social media and gained 25,000 followers on Twitter, showing the appeal their game has to parents. This was the next step in their process was to provide children with access to these useful learning resources.
Along with many entrepreneurs, Atassi faced challenges. With the growing interest in their board game, Atassi and her partner started to look for investors to grow their product. However, this proved to be harder than anticipated. There did not seem to be any investors who were interested in their product as they claimed it was not a secure investment. Although this negative feedback may have discouraged Atassi, she persisted to work hard in order to interest investors.
In addition to the initial issue of finding investors and increasing interest in the board game and app, she also had to deal with the obstacle of being a woman. Being a woman, even in this day, is difficult. Especially being an entrepreneur in the business world, being a woman is a visual barrier that many cannot seem to look past. As a result, women hold less power in the business world than men and own fewer companies.
To expand their project they developed an app, a digital version of the board game, with a developer in Dubai. The game focussed on teaching Arabic with a theme of environmental issues. Although this may seem as if it was an easy process, Atassi explains that self marketing is extremely difficult. Getting the word out about your company requires networking and connecting with groups of people you normally would not talk to. While this was definitely a challenge for Atassi, she did not let it bring her down. She stayed positive through it all. This can be seen a few years later, when she was considering a new project and did not only think about what could go wrong, rather she thought about the possibility of succeeding and the reward that would follow.
Despite this positive outlook, Atassi faced conflicts that took place less within the business world, and more in her dedication to her family. A big part of being a mother, is raising children and being with them. Atassi’s devotion to her family was, and is, very evident. Additionally, Atassi’s husband travelled a lot for work. Their family was often moving, something Atassi and the children had adapted to, however, there were consequences that affected Atassi’s business and made it hard to maintain due to the time spent moving and losing certain connections. Although Atassi was losing the momentum of her business, she was willing to make these sacrifices for her family, especially her children who, when young, makes all the difference. Atassi knew this through her journey and she knew that, while she was putting her dreams aside, if she believed in herself, she would eventually achieve her goals. As a result, she decided to focus on raising her children and spending time with her family.
To accomplish this, she put the Abjad Hawaz project on hold and explored other passions. She took time to volunteer to help Syrian refugees and provide social support. This is a truly selfless act and something that has helped shape Atassi’s experience. All of these experiences are crucial to Atassi’s journey and career; however, the pivotal moment for her occurred when her daughter was nine years old. One day, her daughter came home with a school project that had her researching and reporting on a city. She chose Aleppo, the biggest city in Syria and her family’s origin city, in order to explore her heritage and family background. However, when she went to look up photos of the country, she was horrified at what she saw. Most of the photos and resources online showed Aleppo in its post war, meaning they revealed the ruins and destructive state of Aleppo as opposed to the healthier state it was in before.
Atassi had to describe the once thriving streets, the hustle and bustle of the city, the medieval architecture and rich cultural history. She told her daughter about the “summers spent with family, the evenings in the courtyards and gardens with the smell of jasmine and gardenia plants, and the times when adults would talk over a cup of coffee, and the kids would run around playing.” This gave Atassi the idea to write a storybook set in Syria before the war to show the world what the city used to be like or even still is in many ways. The Syria she is writing about is a Syria of childhood memories. It is about always feeling welcomed and having a place of belonging with relatives competing over who’s going to invite you for lunch the next day. “It’s the memories of visiting the Old City and spending hours navigating the narrow streets looking for treasures that came in the form of exotic spices or scarves or jewelry, or candy and special treats that we can only find there and wait for each summer. It’s all the sights, sounds, and smells of those summer memories combined into one.”
As Atassi went into detail about her storybook, she brought her idea to life: to create a picture book with a main character inspired by her daughter who is “curious, creative, and always seeking adventure”. The story will surround the themes of girl empowerment, the old city of Aleppo, and Arab culture. Atassi’s vision is to turn this book into a series to further promote Arab culture and the other critical themes within her story. Something that I found really interesting was the lack of Arabic culture in Syrian media and how heavily influenced the Middle East is by North American culture, especially in books and television. An example of this can be seen when one goes into a bookstore in the Middle East and how hard it is to find the Arabic section. Atassi explained how she often finds it in the back of one of the bookstores and on the bottom shelf, never mind the size of the collection.
A way to combat this, is to integrate more Middle Eastern material and allow it to be accessible to all. Fortunately, Atassi’s story book will do this. She specified how her book will enable Syrian children to “identify with the Syrian characters and allow them to learn about their culture” in the right context. Having role models that children can identify with and develop a sense of pride for is so crucial in helping them grow up to be amazing people and role models themselves.
Atassi’s hope is for her books to expand past Boston and the Middle East. She wants to see her stories being shared globally, positively influencing as many children as possible, spreading the word and educating all on the true Syria. She wishes for children in Syria to develop a sense of pride for their culture and be knowledgeable enough to develop that pride in the first place. Furthermore, Atassi is not only hoping, wanting, and wishing for these things, she is creating the change. She is taking action and working on these issues hands on. And for this, she is truly an inspiration. She believes that if you follow your passion and don’t give up because the road is long and difficult, and success won’t come immediately, then there are no limitations to your dreams. If you believe in yourself, there are no roadblocks you cannot get past to achieve more. There are no obstacles you cannot overcome to fulfill your dreams. This is Reem Atassi’s way of thinking, this is her way of living, and this is her interpretation of “Oh! The places you’ll go!”.