The Dubai-based educator and founder of Eco Visionaries Global Group and Edufam Training Services UAE on how a grey Delhi sky in 2021 set her on a path that culminates this week in the Global Leadership Conference, GLC Dubai 2026.
For more than two decades, education was Dr Haleema Sadia’s life’s work. She served as a principal and educational leader in international schools across India, the UAE and the Maldives, and worked closely with educators and institutions in Singapore and Malaysia. Her mission, she says, was always to shape young minds and open doors to learning.
Then in 2021, something happened that changed the direction of her life. Her granddaughter was born.
“Like every grandparent, I was overwhelmed with joy the first time I held her,” Sadia recalls. “Looking at her innocent face, I prayed silently for a bright and beautiful future.”
Moments later, she looked out of the window. The sky over Delhi was grey. The air was heavy. The city lay under a blanket of pollution.
A painful question settled in her heart: what kind of world was she leaving behind for this child?
“As I kept looking at that polluted sky, I understood something I had perhaps always known but never fully confronted,” she says. “Humanity had achieved remarkable progress, yet that progress had come at a cost. Climate change, pollution, waste and irresponsible consumption were quietly threatening the future of the generation being born into our care.”
She could not look away from that feeling. If she truly loved her granddaughter, and the generations who would follow her, she had a responsibility to act. That day, she says, became a turning point in her life.
Sadia committed herself to sustainability and environmental responsibility.
From individual effort to a global network
She began alone, running awareness programmes and promoting sustainable practices wherever she could. It did not take long for her to realise that sustainability is not a journey anyone can complete in isolation. No individual, organisation or country can solve environmental challenges on its own, she found. It demands collaboration, collective action and partnership across borders.
That realisation led her to found Eco Visionaries Global Group, a network bringing together sustainability advocates, educators, business leaders and professionals. Today the group spans the UAE, Malaysia, Singapore, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Argentina and several other countries, working together to promote sustainable lifestyles, responsible consumption and community-driven environmental initiatives.
To give that work a structured platform for education and training, Sadia went on to establish Edufam Training Services UAE. It now operates as an educational consultancy and professional training organisation, equipping schools, colleges, universities, corporate organisations and individuals with sustainability knowledge and practical solutions. “Our mission can be put simply,” she says. “To inspire people to live responsibly today, so future generations can thrive tomorrow.”
In the years since, the organisation has run international conferences, leadership forums, sustainability campaigns, webinars and community initiatives connecting people across borders and cultures. That work continues on 20 June 2026, when Sadia hosts the Global Leadership Conference, GLC Dubai 2026, bringing together global leaders, educators, entrepreneurs and sustainability champions who believe that leadership must go hand in hand with sustainability.
A promise that began with one child
Every step of Sadia’s journey traces back to that day in 2021, when she held her granddaughter for the first time and looked out at a grey Delhi sky. She became, in Sadia’s words, “my inspiration and my reason,” a constant reminder that sustainability is not simply an environmental movement but a promise made to the generations who come after.
“A promise of cleaner air. A promise to protect the planet we share. A promise to build a better world than the one we were handed,” Sadia says.
For her, the greatest legacy anyone can leave their children is not wealth or possessions. It is a healthy, sustainable and liveable planet.
