Enas Hashani

The idea of establishing Rumman Company, a media house in Jeddah, first began to take shape when Saudi businesswoman Enas Hashani had a vision of motivating local youth and enabling them to become more active. At the same time she wanted to help improve the city she grew up in.

Arab News visited Hashani at the head office in the Suhaily Building on Andalus Street. Walking down the corridor leading up to the rooftop office, it is easy to see where Hashani’s inspiration comes from. Looking out the windows, you see the beautiful traditional architecture of the historic buildings in the area. But at the same time, there are also new developments and projects under way. It is a perfect blend of ancient and modern, juxtapositioned in much the same way that, through her media ventures, she has introduced the youth of Jeddah to the historic city in which they were born and grew up.

One of the most popular of the ventures that the media house has recently launched is Destination Jeddah magazine as well as a social networking site called Fanaik.com.

“The basic principle behind creating the magazine came from my frankly being tired of people complaining about the city of Jeddah, saying that it is boring with nothing to offer,” she says. She knew that this stereotype of the city was far from the truth. “Jeddah is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Saudi Arabia and I believe that it has so many things to offer residents as well as potential visitors to the area as tourism in the Kingdom begins to take off,” she explains. She says that she simply created a medium to introduce people to what they were missing.

With family roots in the holy city of Madinah and her heart firmly in love with Jeddah, her mission has certainly been blessed. Destination Jeddah, according to its editor in chief, has grown from 10,000 copies to 20,000 copies during their last printing. “We are of course pleased with the local reaction from, not only the expatriate community, which was one of our primary targets in terms of audience, but also from young Saudis who are interested in learning more about the city where they have lived all of their lives,” Hashani says. Published monthly, its seventh issue is about to appear, Destination Jeddah offers the latest information on events around town, special features about other Saudi cities, religious tourism, fashion and shopping news, restaurant reviews and a full information directory.

As CEO of Rumman, Hashani admits that there were times when friends had doubts about the idea. “I had just finished the first issue and was planning the second. Some friends of mine told me they were skeptical that the magazine would last and asked me why I was so confident.” She recollects one friend even said: “Aren’t you afraid that soon you will run out of things to write about?”

“I think it is funny actually. Because over the past few issues we have covered so many events and have so much content to publish that we have had to expand the number of pages in the magazine on a monthly basis,” Hashani says. Looking back, she says that before she took the decision to do the magazine she was amazed at the number of native Jeddawis who did not know their city. She would speak to people about upcoming events; they were completely unaware of them. They did not know that certain places existed in the city.

“I was surprised that, for instance, I would say that there is a charity dinner to raise money to preserve the historic sites in Jeddah and is being held at the museum and they would say, “Oh, do we have a museum in Jeddah?” It was conversations like these that made me sure that Destination Jeddah would be a success, with plenty of events and activities to report on,” she says, smiling.

Another venture launched by Rumman and proving popular, is the social networking site, Fainak.com. The website, which is also connected to the global networking website Facebook, aims at providing activities and entertainment for the youth of Jeddah while also benefiting them and the community.

The site has become so popular that it has extended to Eastern Province with a team being assembled in Dammam.

As to the future and other goals, she says she would like to expand to Riyadh and further the growth in Eastern region. “But above all we want to be able to make a positive impact on the community and lives of local youth because this is what we feel is a major key in improving the Kingdom overall and its image in the international community,” she concludes.