Page 6 - 2nd Newsletter - Jan - Sep 2020

Inspiring Success Story:

Sameera Al Kooheji, President/Executive Director of Naseem International

School, Education Entrepreneur and Owner of the First Private School in Bahrain.

It has been 37 years since Naseem
International School was founded.
When Mrs. Sameera Al Kooheji enrolled
her eldest son, Abduljabbar in pre-
school and she was pregnant with her
daughter Amina at the time; she saw the
need for Bahrainis to have a bilingual
school in Bahrain.

Naseem school got the approval to
operate in December 1981 and started
operating on January 4, 1982, in
response to a demand for a bilingual
school that caters to both nationals and
expatriates. The school started with at
least 5 students.

After a few months, the number of students increased to 100 and they needed to move to bigger premises at the
Teacher’s Training Center in Gudaibiya where the Elementary section was started. In April 1991, the school moved to
yet bigger premises in Adliya. The Middle School section was started. At the beginning of the Holy Month of Ramadan
(February 1994), work on the new Naseem School campus started. The building was completed in April 1995.

She was only 22 years old when she started setting her dream into reality. She faced a lot of challenges, since
NIS was established only by Mrs. Sameera, not like the other schools who had Board Members or Committees
being organized to build a school. It was not an easy task being a wife, a mum and establishing her school all at
the same time.

Mrs. Sameera has a strong belief in the IB philosophy and thus in 1995-1996, the International Baccalaureate
Diploma was authorized and put in place which saw the number of students involved in the program grow steadily
since then. The IB diploma results have been consistently good over the years. With the IBDP programme in place,
Mrs. Sameera went to visit one of the schools in Jordan twice. She saw the changes in the students’ attitude and
behavior between her first visit and her second visit. It was then that she was persuaded and decided to go further
with the authorization of the other IB Programmes (MYP, PYP) since it educates individually holistically.

Mrs. Shaikha Al Mudahka called Mrs. Sameera to inform her that she was the very first woman in Bahrain to
establish a private school in the Kingdom of Bahrain. This news made her very proud, and even more so, when
her contribution was recognized in the publication of a book entitled Ra’eidat (pioneers); a publication which
acknowledges the contribution of Bahraini women in the fields of leadership and contributions to the development
of the country.