Cultural exchange: Rosemary Behan

Paul Sellers is the country director for the British Council in the UAE. Lauren Lancaster / The National

Paul Sellers is good at selling Britain. As the country director for the British Council in the UAE, with three offices and over 100 staff in a region the foreign office considers a “priority area”, he has to be.

In the past two years, the organisation’s outposts in the Middle East and North Africa have seen their resources multiply, while its presence in western Europe, India and South Africa has been quietly reduced.

The purpose of the British Council – to “build mutually beneficial relationships between people in the UK and other countries and to increase appreciation of the UK’s creative ideas and achievements” – is thought to be of critical importance in the Gulf in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Britain’s role in Afghanistan and the ongoing conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

“Of course the focus on the Middle East and this part of the world is brought about by big events like Iraq, which have highlighted the lack of awareness between the UK and the Islamic world,” Sellers says from his office in Abu Dhabi. “This on top of the fact that historically there hasn’t been enough cultural and educational exchange and mutual understanding. The big differences in the language and the script have also made that a challenge until now.”

Sellers is behind dozens of educational and artistic initiatives designed to bridge the gap between East and West, and is particularly enthusiastic about Kalima, an Abu Dhabi-based translation project at the Cultural Foundation which aims to translate 100 works from English into Arabic each year.

With such emphasis on dialogue, cultural exchange and mutual understanding, it’s easy to forget that the British Council receives one third of its income from Whitehall. Gone is any overtly imperialist promotion of so-called “British ideas”; its official mission statement talks of “our strong belief in internationalism … a conviction that cultural relations can help individuals and the world community to thrive.”

Sellers, who was previously posted in Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Greece, is open about the charity’s relationship to the government, but rejects the suggestion that its early reputation as an organ of cultural propaganda, derided by George Orwell, was still applicable.

“We are obviously closely affiliated to the foreign office and we work closely with the embassy here because our missions and agendas coincide in many areas,” he says. “But the British Council was set up under a royal charter as an independent not-for-profit body to promote cultural relations between the UK and other countries, and that is essentially what we do.”

The strength of Sellers’ enthusiasm for the region and the depth of his commitment to projects here are clear. His first remit is in education, where the council is working with the UAE government to support its agenda for development. This involves assistance in the development of the national curriculum, “quality assurance” in teacher training, and leadership advice. It is behind several projects linking schools and classrooms throughout the region; there are currently 20 primary schools in the UAE which have been linked with UK schools.

The British Council also offers English language courses to the public and administers British examinations and qualifications on behalf of local and expatriate schools. It tests English language skills through IELTS – the International English Language Testing System – enabling immigration authorities and universities to assess applicants. It is also working to promote access to UK higher education for Emiratis through an exhibition called Educex, which brings some 50 UK universities to Abu Dhabi and Dubai each year.

“We encourage UK universities to form partnerships with local institutions, so that they can establish relationships to support the development of higher and vocational education across the UAE,” Sellers says.

Underlying all of this is the British Council’s efforts to boost the educational level of students in the UAE.

“Although young kids are now speaking good English, we are very conscious that the school system as it stands is not necessarily producing people with the English language skills necessary to go on to higher education,” Sellers says. “The 16- to 20-year-olds now are a focus for us. There are big efforts underway to improve their English and to prepare them for the workplace in general. The need is to get the new generation of leaders and workers in the Emirates to be able to compete effectively in the international arena, and to compete for the management jobs in the international companies here. At the moment it’s an issue because these companies are generally staffed with expats and it would be a much more helpful situation if there was a higher proportion of Emiratis in key posts.”

The British Council’s remit in Abu Dhabi extends well into the future. Another feature of its work is supporting the development of museums and art galleries, in particular the vast Saadiyat Island project, where the British Council will be training Emirati museum curators.

“This project is enormous, and it’s funded and managed well, but there is a big need for curators and we have a museum management course that we put on in various parts of the region periodically anyway. When you look at the scale of the ambition on the cultural front, you can’t have that without having trained personnel, and again we don’t want to have the situation where they all have to be imported from abroad.”

When he arrived in Abu Dhabi two years ago, one of Sellers’ first tasks was to unearth all the key players from the worlds of publishing, fashion and the arts. Last year the British Council initiated the International Young Publisher of the Year Award, in association with the London Book Fair. The award is designed to “celebrate entrepreneurial ability, strengthen creative leadership, networking and capacity building in the international publishing industry”.

“Publishing is one big area in which we want to help to build up the local market,” Sellers says. “It is one of those emerging areas which are economically very important. Obviously in the UK sectors like publishing and fashion create a lot of worth so if we can help create that here and help provide alternative employment for locals, that can have a benefit socially.”

Last year the British Council sent Mansour Abul Houl, the winner of the publishing award and the director of Jerboa Books, a three-year-old Abu Dhabi-based publishing house specialising in children’s literature, to London to help forge links with British counterparts. The council also runs an award for fashion entrepreneurs and this year is launching a visual arts award. In mid-October, 10 finalists will arrive in the UK for a 12-day tour of London, Newcastle, Gateshead and Liverpool, taking in the Frieze Art Fair, the Zoo Art Fair, and the Liverpool Biennial International Festival. The winner will receive an award of Dh53,900 to be spent on a project in collaboration with the British Council.

“We are looking for the new generation of creative leaders and role models, people who are really pushing forward their industries,” Sellers says.

He is particularly enthusiastic about Rabia Z, a young Emirati designer who won last year’s fashion award.

“She designs clothes for women which are fashionable but still consistent with the Islamic dress code,” Sellers says. “We sent her on a series of workshops to the UK earlier this year and she had work experience with Paul Smith. This young woman is highly creative and was already established here, but we felt there was also a benefit to the UK fashion sector. We also wanted to help raise awareness of women’s role in society, as businesspeople.”

As if that were not enough, Sellers’ cultural calendar for this year is jam-packed. He’s in the middle of planning an “intercultural dialogue through literature” event with the Scottish Arts Council to coincide with the Edinburgh International Book Fair in August, and is hoping to send some local representatives to the Contact International Forum, an international theatre exchange project for young people based in Liverpool.

Next February, the British Council will help host a series of events in Sharjah to coincide with the arrival of Lure of the East, an exhibition of Orientalist art from the Tate Britain gallery in London.

“We want to increase the visibility of our arts and cultural side, because people mainly know us for our educational initiatives,” Sellers says. “But we really want to be meeting the Emirates’ aspirations in terms of culture and making sure that where British expertise and experience can be of use they are, and that ideas can be exchanged.”