RIYADH: When Belgian happiness manager Cindy Van Pollaert arrived in Saudi Arabia for the first time in 2021, she expected to encounter the country as it was portrayed in much of the Western media. Instead, a visit to the Formula One race in Jeddah challenged her assumptions and ultimately inspired a storytelling project dedicated to amplifying the voices of women across the Kingdom and the wider Gulf region. Van Pollaert was struck by the atmosphere among the crowd at the event: women and men g
