Omar Al Owais is a columnist at Sail Magazine in the United Arab Emirates and author of Salvaged, a poetry anthology. Previously, Omar worked with Sail Publishing founder Iman Ben Chaibah, a 2017-2018 Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellow, on mental health stories during her fellowship year. Omar has coordinated several Model United Nations conferences internationally and in the UAE, is part of the current cohort of the UAE Youth Ambassadors to China, and studies International Relations at the American University of Sharjah.

Explore some of Omar’s reporting during the fellowship year:

• Coronavirus has taken a toll on the mental health of students (The National News | June 11, 2020)
• I’m burnt out: The story of a generation (Sail | August 19, 2020)
• We need to talk about men’s mental health (The National News | October 12, 2020)
• A visit to the barber can do wonders for men’s mental health (The National News | October 10, 2021)
• Why is it hard for so many men to cry? (The National News | February 17, 2022)