Meet an Emirati entrepreneur who made helping animals her business

Gulf News

Meet an Emirati entrepreneur who made helping animals her business. 28-year-old Emirati Afra Al Daheri has followed her passion for animal welfare and opened Cloud 9, Abu Dhabi's first pet hotel. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv

Transcript

00:00There's an increase in the number of Emirati entrepreneurs who are coming up with unique

00:09ideas for businesses. We've come to Khalifa City in Abu Dhabi to meet with one Emirati

00:14entrepreneur who's took her passion for animals and turned it into a business.

00:18Cloud9 Pet Hotel and Care is a facility where we cater to the animals. We have boarding

00:25facilities for cats, dogs, birds and small animals. We also have a veterinary clinic,

00:31doggy day care, a pet store, dog training and soon to open a pet-friendly cafe.

00:40I started off rescuing animals off the street around nine years ago and found difficulty

00:48understanding where these animals came from, which motivated me to do some research and

00:55found out that most of the animals that I've rescued were abandoned by their owners. I

01:00tried to get a hold of some of the owners and came to the conclusion that they did not

01:09really know where to keep their animals and had no option but to give them up by giving

01:13them to a friend or dumping them in the streets and hoping for someone to rescue their animal.

01:18I couldn't ask my family to fund this project and I couldn't take a loan as I was a student.

01:27I've heard of Khalifa Fund and I've approached them with the idea only, like a general idea,

01:34and they rejected me on the first visit. It let me down because they did not give me the

01:41opportunity to explain more in detail, so I went back home, done a study, I've decided to go out

01:47to the community and create 600 surveys. I've done my research very thoroughly and went back

01:57to Khalifa Fund to demand that they actually hear me out. First of all, Afra is a very passionate,

02:04hard-working and persistent entrepreneur, Emirati entrepreneur, and Emirati female

02:11entrepreneur actually. She wanted to start the project in a field that we don't usually or we

02:22rarely see Emiratis going into or tapping into. So Afra basically is a pioneer in that field,

02:32which that somehow complicated the process probably with Khalifa Fund because we weren't

02:38really kind of involved or knowledgeable in the details of the market segment that she wants to

02:49tap into. She had to go back and forth to satisfy several requirements from Khalifa Fund. That took

02:59several months after which she kind of got the approval from Khalifa Fund to start and kick-start

03:04her project. Having a boarding facility in the UAE has a very high demand and is very important,

03:12and not only is it good for the reputation of the UAE, but also we're gonna save a lot of lives

03:20by opening this company. Afra is a great example. If you're really passionate about something and

03:26you want it really bad, you will succeed no matter what obstacles are put in your path.

03:31I'm Sarvya Garampaya, Golf News.

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