Sabri Ahmed Saleem
President & Founder, YCMES

Sabri Saleem has many years of experience in administration and Arabic language instruction. He was the Associate Country Director for the US Peace Corps for twelve years before founding YLC in 1989. He was responsible for the planning and implementation of pre-service training programs, including the Arabic language training and cultural programming, as well as supervising Peace Corps Yemen’s TOEFL and health care projects. He has participated in and helped lead workshops on various topics in numerous countries throughout Africa, Asia, and the U.S.

Sabri Saleem is certified as an Arabic language tester by the U.S. Department of State and the British Foreign Ministry, and gives regular workshops in Arabic and cross-cultural communication to diplomats, corporate clients and scholars in Yemen. Fluent in both English and Arabic, he has studied language-teaching techniques in Britain, Africa and the United States. Mr. Saleem is the author of the textbook on Yemeni Colloquial Arabic, Al-cArabiyya al-Yamaniyya.

Mr. Saleem’s work with the US Peace Corps gave him valuable experience in working with foreigners and taught him the value of cultural interaction. Viewing language as a key component to cross-cultural interaction, Mr. Saleem was inspired to establish the Yemen Language Center. The success of the language center and a perceived need to educate people about the region led him to add the Yemen Center for Arab Studies to the Yemen Language Center. Mr. Saleem is confident that the newly-established Yemen College for Middle Eastern Studies will be the culmination of his efforts to provide a setting for a critical study of the region, its language, culture, politics, and economy. For the sake of the College’s continuity, he is optimistic that it will become a self-sufficient entity owned by educational institutions around the world.