CIOB In Bahrain 2021

As regional manager of CIOB Middle East & North Africa, one of my key responsibilities is to promote services and support members across the region. I am also responsible for supporting Hub committees so that they can support members locally.

I joined CIOB at the eve of the Covid19 pandemic March 2020, the MENA team and I have adapted to online events and networking to initiate strong growth and high volume of professional learning.

Last week, I finally took a long awaited trip to Manama, Bahrain, a place that has a good history and home to past president of CIOB Ghassan Aouad, President of Applied Science University Bahrain. Ghassan gave us praise for continuing to drive CIOB through tough times, and as part of a visit to his university Ghassan gave his full support to the hub committee and has agreed to help drive initiatives across the country and beyond. Thank you Ghassan!

For this trip, I teamed up with our newly appointed MENA Training Manager Justin Hall who is responsible for promoting The CIOB Academy services internationally. Together we identify companies and individuals who may require industry expertise and professional development.  

Travelling through the airport was very much the same experience, Dubai airport equipped brilliantly for new protocol. The current rules in Bahrain mean that all passengers need to take a mandatory Covid Test on arrival and have a short self-isolation period. A good chance to get essential admin done the rest of the trip was fully loaded!

We had the pleasure of making Downtown Rotana, Manama our base for this stay, huge compliments to the staff for an immaculate service led by GM Patrice Cornee . This venue is likely to be the home of our face to face CPD and networking events for our members in Bahrain due to its fantastic location, service and immense space.

Most of my work is made easy by dedicated CIOB members who give up their time to help initiate things. Chris Core is another one of these people. Chris will take the lead as Manama, Bahrain Hub Committee Chair. Chris played host to Justin and I, setting up an evening of networking at Bahrain Rugby Football Club which was the perfect way to speak to people living in Bahrain and understanding the lifestyle and culture.

On Wednesday, we visited Mott Macdonald which gave us the opportunity to meet potential candidates and discuss membership pathways to MCIOB and FCIOB. A big thank you Alex Macleod for reaching out to CIOB about this potential collaboration. Mott Macdonald were kind enough to give us a detailed overview and site visit to the Social Housing development, Diyar Al Muharraq. Fatima Qambar Ali Lead Engineer – Secondary Infrastructure hosted our tour and we were very grateful to see behind the scenes. The speed and quality of this development! Wow!

Our next appointment was with Uni Training Institute who reached out to us as a potential partner for construction training. We were overwhelmed with their training facility and a very positive conversation with the management team there will present another opportunity for CIOB to grow in Bahrain.

Our host Chris, was good enough to drive us south of the island to within close proximately of the F1 Sakhir circuit. to the very impressive Convention Centre and Sports City Project in Bahrain. Another eye opener, and it was great for CIOB to be inland learning about the Bahrain Economic Vision 2030. This is certainly a country with development opportunities.

During the evening we were guests of Al Hilal Enterprises, in their chain of restaurants in Bahrain. We had the delight of visiting San Carlo's Restaurant located in Al-Aali Mall, which is a regular spot for certain celebrities proven by the pictures on the wall, shame we didn’t bump into Sir Alex Ferguson this time. Great food, great company, Thank you Chris.

During the same evening, I had the pleasure of meeting Sujani Lamahewa (MCIOB) who has agreed to join the committee as vice chair. Sujani has given us key information in understanding how our CIOB may get more recognition with support from The Council for Regulating the Practice of Engineering Professions (CRPEP). This will be a key deliverable of Bahrain Hub committee in 2021.  

On Thursday, we took a short drive to The Avenues BBD (Bulletin Board Architecture) before heading to our appointment with British University of Bahrain (BUB). I was thrilled to get time with Julie Cross (MCIOB) and Eamonn Farrell in building a relationship with CIOB. 

We delivered our first hybrid event with some students on campus and in person, the rest online via MS teams. During this session, we identified potential Student Champions for BUB along with several potential Novus Group members who can help us deliver a strong message to young professionals in Bahrain. I am pleased to say that we had a number of students register to become members even before I arrived home which displays the appetite for young professionals to consider organisations such as The CIOB. 

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