UAE's Jenna doll helps children learn Quran verses easily

Following Jenna's initial success, in July 2015 Samira and her family decided to move to the UAE from France

A Dubai-based French expat and mother hopes that a new toy - a Holy Quran-reciting doll - will help young girls across the Arabian Gulf to learn the Holy Quran quickly, and have fun while they're at it.
In an interview with Khaleej Times, French national Samira Amarir noted that the idea for the doll, Jenna - which is Arabic for heaven - came to her four years ago as she found herself struggling to find a tool or toy that would help her young daughter learn the verses of the Holy Quran "easily, and in a fun way".
"When I began, I started to imagine the product. That was more than four years ago. My daughter is six and a half, and I started to think about it when she was only one and a half years old," she said. "It was a very, very long time that I was thinking about the product and trying to put it on paper, thinking about the shape, the body, how she would be dressed, and even what kind of features she would have."
The final product comes dressed in a lengthy Abaya with a matching purple headscarf, as well as light and soft make-up and a slightly dark skin tone.
Following Jenna's initial success, in July 2015 Samira and her family decided to move to the UAE from France to market the doll in the Arabian Gulf region.
"It was a big decision. We sold our house and our cars, and we came here with only our savings," she said. "We bet all we had, all the stability, all the assets, everything, on the doll.
"Of course, it's very easy to build a company here (in the UAE) and to start officially working on a product," she added. "That's what's fantastic about Dubai. Once the doll was finished and we moved on with mass production, I found a job quite easily, and it gave us, and gives us, the stability that we need."
The doll was officially launched in the UAE in January, and quickly hit the shelves of the UAE's major toy stores, including Toys R'Us, Kiddy Zone and The Toy Store. In June, Jenna became available in Bahrain and Oman, followed by Saudi Arabia in July.
Samira attributes the doll's success to the way that children are learning while at the same time playing.
"Everyone is used to playing with such toys, but because of her features and the fact that Jenna can recite (the verses), kids can learn without even noticing," she noted. "They are pushing the button and repeating after the doll, but they are actually learning."
The feedback she's received, Samira added, has been "warm", both from parents and children.
Samira noted that she is particularly proud of a glowingly positive review Jenna received from "Jeddah Mom", a well-known Saudi Arabia-based blogger and social media influencer.
"When we launched this product, we started to reach out to influencers, and we quickly found out that they needed to be paid," she said. "But this lady ordered the doll online without telling us. We didn't reach out to her, and she published such a nice article about it.
"The most rewarding part is that she didn't do it for money," Samira added. "She just really loved the product, and her daughters really loved it as well."
Looking to the future, Samira said that she is exploring ways to make the doll even better.
"Our goal now is that we are really working on how to make the doll smarter, with new technologies that would make the doll more intelligent," she said. "We are trying to see what the possibilities are."
bernd@khaleejtimes.com