Who is Manaal Khalid?
Manaal Khalid, founder of Project Umeed by MK.
Manaal Khalid founded Project Umeed by MK in 2025 — a youth-led global initiative that pairs interactive storytelling with direct action for the dignity, health and education of women and girls.
- Role
- Founder, Project Umeed by MK
- Founded
- 2025
- Flagship project
- Her Choices simulation
- Focus
- Dignity, education, empathy, action
Manaal Khalid is a student, builder and organiser, and the founder of Project Umeed by MK. She started the project in 2025 after building Her Choices, an interactive simulation that asks visitors to walk through the decisions a young woman makes about school, health and family.
The simulation taught her that people act on stories in a way they rarely act on statistics. That same year she helped assemble and distribute the first women's dignity kits — packed by volunteers and delivered through schools and community partners.
Today Manaal Khalid leads Project Umeed by MK's storytelling, education and youth chapter work: the Umeed Atlas, the learning library, dignity drives and a growing network of student-run chapters. One rule stays at the centre of all of it — dignity first, always.
Explore her work