Saniya Chughtai is the founder, CEO and author behind The Wadi Tribe — a global children’s edutainment brand built on one powerful belief: that every child deserves stories that grow their heart as well as their mind.
Saniya began creating characters from the people around her as far back as 2010 — turning friends and family into cartoon characters and writing stories that children could truly see themselves in. After focus groups spanning 72 nationalities across Dubai, Ireland and Pakistan, The Wadi Tribe was officially founded in 2018.
Today the brand spans children’s books, Islamic colouring books, storytelling sessions and educational content for ages 2–14 — all anchored in social and emotional learning through multicultural characters.
Saniya has appeared on Ireland’s national television network RTÉ, won the People’s Choice Award at the INDEX Exhibition in Dubai, and took The Wadi Tribe to the finals of Richard Branson’s VOOM 2016 competition.
Saniya Chughtai
Founder and CEO
Saniya is a Serial Entrepreneur, Business Consultant, Children’s Author and Interior Architect.
Saniya has appeared on Ireland’s national television network RTÉ for several seasons. She won the People’s Choice Award at the INDEX Exhibition, Dubai. She has written 7 children’s books including the Chee & Dae series — translated into Arabic and Urdu — and Tach the Hurler. Her book ‘Tach and the Cosanthor’ won the Viewers Choice Award by TCK Publishing. Her documentary “The Story of the Storyteller” won best short documentary at GUTech. She took The Wadi Tribe to the finals of Richard Branson’s VOOM 2016 competition.
Brendan Mckittrick
Advisor
Brendan is an established executive who has worked in over 12 countries across many fields of expertise.
Brendan says that he never considers The Wadi Tribe to be work as its fun and rewarding to see so many people benefit from the stories and the Social Emotional Learning programmes. Brendan is a life-long member of the GAA and has played football and hurling with many clubs over four continents on his travels, and says that it’s community based approach makes it the greatest sporting organisation on earth. He is sure that Tach the Hurler will definitely get to visit more GAA clubs worldwide than he has!
Urooj Azmi
TWT Production Head
Urooj is an award-winning filmmaker, new media journalist and communications specialist.
She graduated from Northwestern University with a BSc. degree in Media Industries & Technology and a certificate in civic engagement. She is passionate about creating content that brings underrepresented communities to screen through impactful storytelling.
Urooj has over 6 years of experience in various facets of the media industry. She has worked with media organisations such as Al Jazeera and the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival and has also led the development of innovative media production capacities for multiple startups and government entities in Pakistan. She has won several awards for her work including the Mark of Excellence Award by the South Asian Journalist’s Association.
Kieren Knapp
Senior Editor & Script Writer
Meet Kieren, The Wadi Tribe’s editor extraordinaire!
Born in London but raised in Oman, Kieren has spent much of his life in the desert, climbing sand dunes, exploring date plantations and chasing sunsets! Kieren’s love of adventure and creativity has been vital to The Wadi Tribe’s continuing success story! Kieren has a BA English w/ Creative Writing (Hons) and loves reading, live music and swimming.
Alizeh Chughtai
Content Creator & Social Media Manager
Meet Alizeh, The Wadi Tribe’s creative social media expert.
Alizeh was born in Ireland and is currently studying ‘Media and Communications’ in London. She hopes to become a public speaker some day and an accomplished author! She also has her own brand called ‘Chuggy’, fun notebooks to embrace your uniqueness.
She loves reading, running and loves animals especially dogs!
