Rania Al-Abdullah (Arabic: rny l`bd llh, Raniya al-`Abd Allah; born Rania Al-Yassin on 31 August 1970) is the queen consort of Jordan. Born in Kuwait to a Palestinian family, she later moved to Jordan for work, where she met the then prince Abdullah. Since marrying the now King of Jordan in 1993, she has become known for her advocacy work related to education, health, community empowerment, youth, cross-cultural dialogue and micro-finance. She is also an avid user of social media and she maintains pages on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter.

Queen Rania has also been particularly vocal about the importance of cross cultural and interfaith dialogue to foster greater understanding, tolerance and acceptance across the world. She has used her status to correct what she sees as misconceptions in the West about the Arab world. Forbes magazine ranked her as one of the world's 100 most powerful women in 2011.  Queen Rania has played a significant role in reaching out to the global community to foster values of tolerance and acceptance, and increase cross-cultural dialogue. For example, regionally and internationally, Queen Rania has campaigned for a greater understanding between cultures in such high-profile forums as the Jeddah Economic Forum, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and the Skoll Foundation in the UK.  Queen Rania has also used YouTube as a way to promote intercultural dialogue by calling on young people around the world to engage in a global dialogue to dismantle stereotypes of Muslims and the Arab world. She has also made public appearances, including a half-hour television interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show on 17 May 2006, where she spoke about misconceptions about Islam and especially women in Islam. For her work in reaching out across cultures she received the North-South Prize from the Council of Europe in March 2009 and the first ever YouTube Visionary Award in November 2008. For her work in cross-cultural peace dialogue Queen Rania accepted the PeaceMaker Award. from the Non-Profit Seeds of Peace.  In May 2009, Queen Rania attended the fifth Young Global Leaders Summit at the Dead Sea, Jordan, to address socio-economic challenges facing the region and had trips organized for the Young Global Leaders in which they visited local Madrasati schools, the Jordan River Foundation, and other affiliated organizations.  When it comes to youth, in early 2002 Queen Rania joined the Board of Directors of the International Youth Foundation, based in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States. In September 2006, Queen Rania also joined the United Nations Foundation Board of Directors. The UN Foundation builds and implements public-private partnerships to address the world's most pressing problems, and broadens support for the UN through advocacy and public outreach.

Ask a question about this article.
why did she want to engage in global dialogue to dismantle stereotypes