About Us
Tatiana Antonelli Abella – eCo-Founder
After growing up in Paris and Rome, where she studied Architecture and Urban Planning, Tatiana landed in Dubai in 2005. She quickly realized that the local ‘eco environment’ was lagging behind and it made her think on how to help raise awareness among the local community: curb pollution, conserve natural resources and reduce the impact on the environment. Her passion for Sustainability and the Environment led her to co-found Goumbook creating the first green information resource and green directory for the MENA Region.
Randala Jishi Anabtawi – eCo-Founder
Born and raised in Dubai, Randala graduated in Business Economics and Human Resources Management in London, to return to a brand new metropolis where her commitment to the Environment blossomed into a sense of duty towards the community. Her love for fashion, new trends and products led her to discover the many opportunities offered by a green lifestyle, without compromising on quality and style. By co-founding Goumbook she incorporated her passion into the pursuit of a more sustainable and ecofriendly way of life.
Sabine Bremme Que – Business Development & Strategy Manager
Working as a management consultant across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, Sabine brings more than 10 years of experience in the consulting business to her role as Business Development and Strategy Manager for Goumbook. Her work brought her to Kuwait in 2004 and then to the UAE in 2005, joining the Green Team in 2011: having become a mother, her desire to actively make a difference in the green economy of the UAE and the region increased, as well as her will to become a better, environmentally conscious individual and role model.
Meet the Goumbook Team of Experts and read more about their passion for the Environment
WHAT IS GOUMBOOK?
Goumbook is the main reference on green practices for environmentally conscious people and businesses across the UAE and the Gulf region, aiming to reach the entire Middle East’s conscious communities.
Goumbook is an online information platform that helps source products, services and materials through its unique Green Directory. The aim is to help manufacturers, retailers and consumers to meet and boost the local green economy.
The comprehensive News section covers all environmental news from the region and visitors can search the Eco Calendar to find all green events happening in the region and internationally.
The Green Jobs section responds to the green economy activities and technologies impact that are rapidly changing worker requirements and occupational demand. Green Jobs, powered and supported by Bayt.com, the #1 job site in the Middle East, is dedicated to talented job seekers and employers belonging to the green industries, to find each other anywhere in the MENA Region and the World.
Goumbook also offers offline services to help individuals and companies Go Green: we organize events, exhibitions and corporate initiatives to engage with the local community and promote an eco-healthier lifestyle.
We are very proud of our ‘Give a Ghaf’ Tree Planting program where we have planted over 2,000 Ghaf trees seeds in just a few months. This initiative aims to boost awareness on the local ecosystem, protecting fauna and flora from the dangers or desertification, mass construction, water depletion and extinction.
WHY GOUM?
Goumbook was born to bring attention on the region’s efforts towards a greener economy and we didn’t want to give it a name starting with ‘eco’ or ‘green’ but find something related to the local culture. What connected the region originally better than the Bedouins? While investigating their world and looking for something particular to their lifestyle, we found out that the family traveling around the desert from Persia up to Morocco was called the ‘goum’.
The goum was a group of people who would live together according to an ethic of self-help and collective responsibility, sharing resources, reusing them all when possible and avoiding any wastage.
The root of the word “Goum” is ‘qâma’, whose original meaning is ‘get up’, ‘stand up’ and ‘stand still’. The same Arabic root continued to grow with the word ‘qâma Ala’. The bottom line remains the same, ‘rising’, but it enlarges and becomes ‘emergence’, to save threatened life.
Goum truly is “A wonderful Arabic word that should be interpreted starting from its roots and following all its developments. It contains a threefold idea of tribes and life. In fact it doesn’t indicate just a tribe, but people who stand on their own foot, a tribe that stands up for life … “(Michel Menu).
In the UAE it is often found written ‘goam’ and again holds the meaning of tribe, family.
The aim is to make all of us stand up for a green ideal and unite towards a better world, sharing facts, ideas and advice on how to live a more responsible life. Anything we can do together for the environment is a good thing for this and future generations.
Open the book, get connected and go green your way.
GREEN CERTIFIED WEBSITE
The global carbon emissions of information and communication technologies are greater than the entire aviation industry due to the amount of fossil fuels used to power servers and individual computers. We have taken steps to play our part in reducing the global carbon footprint by becoming a “Green certified site” and thus ensuring that our website is carbon neutral.
