Hessa Al Noaimi is the Co-founder of the Arab Youth Climate Movement Qatar (AYCM), an environmental non-profit organization led by a group of young professionals in Qatar. They dedicate their efforts to promoting climate education, sustainability capacity-building in different sectors, leading grassroots community work, and publishing research.
Some of their initiatives include the national ‘Household Carbon Footprint’ program in partnership with the Ministry of Education and US embassy, teaching children from across 150 schools in Qatar how to calculate their household carbon footprint and using the gathered data to inform action. One of AYCM’s most notable raising awareness campaigns is the Earth Talks Series held every year, bringing together climate experts, academics, diplomats and business owners to discuss all things sustainability related. With a focus on empowering youth, AYCM also leads the Local Conference of Youth Qatar (LCOY) as a pre-event to the COP conference.
Volunteer work has been a consistent part of Hessa’s life ever since she was a student from serving as an Education Above All Youth Advocate in 2013-2019 to working for Teach for Qatar during its early founding years.
Upon graduating from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar with a degree in International Relations and with an honors research award focused on ‘Education reform and policies’, Hessa worked in the education sector from 2016-present. In those years she received her Master’s in ‘Educational Leadership’ from UCL’s Institute of Education and graduated from Qatar Leadership Centre’s Rising Leaders program in 2024.
Hessa is currently a Director and the Head of Quality Assurance at the Newton Group of Schools.