Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:03 Hello and welcome to Women of the Middle East Podcast, women of the Middle East. This podcast relates through realities of Arab woman and their rich and diverse experiences. It aims to present the multiplicity of their voices and wishes to break overdue cultural stereotypes about women of the Middle East. My name is a Maki. I'm a feminist, scholar and educator. This is Women of the Middle East podcast. This is season four women voices across genres where I will be speaking to women producing feminist content across different genres and outlets. These courageous voices delve into untapped areas such as women with disability, hybrid identities, intergenerational trauma, feminist narrative, and activism, and much, much more. I'm your host, Maki, contributing to creating a new narrative about us by us. This is Women of the Middle East Podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman of the Middle East podcast. I'm so happy today because we have an Rine Ed whom, um, I've been wanting to talk to for so long since I heard about, um, um, her, uh, a year ago and her amazing work. Uh, Rine is a lawyer, researcher, change maker who builds communities, communities of both practice and knowledge. She is transforming how social work looks like in the Arab world. Uh, nare, welcome to Woman of the Middle East podcast.
Speaker 2 00:01:32 Thank you so much for having me on board. I'm very excited and I listen to a few episodes of your podcast, and I am happy to be here with you.
Speaker 1 00:01:42 Thank you, Rine. It's a pleasure. Rine. Um, you have a really impressive bio, uh, which I didn't want to go through because I'd like to hear your own story, your own narrative. Tell us a bit about yourself.
Speaker 2 00:01:54 Um, so I'm, uh, Palestinian was born in Palestine and then moved to Jordan and grew up in Jordan. Um, in Jordan. I went to school in this, uh, liberal co-ed, uh, school where I belonged to the basketball team. And, uh, that kind of formed my part of my personality, belonging to a team, um, going for games, traveling for competition, uh, being very disciplined in practice, uh, training my body to, uh, to follow suit, um, if I could say that. And, uh, after finishing school, I went to study law. I decided to study law because, uh, during those years in Jordan, we would cross the bridge to Palestine every summer to go see our family and relatives and that journey crossing the Israeli Bridge and, uh, going through the humiliation of the, uh, inspections and the humiliation of the treatment, going back to your own country, but being, um, questioned and prevented and, um, viewing all that hardship every summer, uh, made me also want to become a lawyer.
Speaker 2 00:03:12 So I studied law and I went to, uh, university of Edin Brown, uh, to do my master's degree during which, uh, period. During that period, my parents returned to live in, uh, Palestine. So, uh, I returned as well and joined the Palestinian negotiating Team, um, for the peace, the so-called Peace talks. Uh, I was one of the legal advisors to the negotiations, and that is another very long story of, um, five years of trying hard to find justice through, um, negotiations and getting nowhere. So, um, that took me perhaps to the third chapter in which I am in now. So I went back to university after being depressed with the talk and thinking, okay, negotiations doesn't, um, get us justice. What does, and in, uh, university, um, I met this guy Marshall Ga at Harvard Kennedy School. He's my professor, my mentor, my teacher, and he has a unique way, he's developed a unique way to organizing connect collective action organizing communities to demand their rights.
Speaker 2 00:04:31 And, um, I got attracted to it. And, um, and once I finished my learning there, I returned and established an organization called ahead, and, uh, I'll tell you about it a little bit more later, but, uh, that's 11 years ago now. And in those 11 years, we've, uh, supported people and to build communities to, uh, demand their rights to lead the change they want. Uh, through this methodology, I learned and evolved with Marshall. And, uh, so far we've supported 35 campaigns in the Arab worms and in the North <inaudible>. And, uh, they've built, uh, people power. They've built, uh, a way to collective work, to building team, and they achieved, uh, their rights and the change they want. So, and I am a mother to a 20 year
Speaker 1 00:05:31 Old. Uh, you spoke about how, and I sensed your disappointment in terms of what happened in the so-called, as you said, his thoughts. Uh, are you still enthusiastic? Are you still optimistic? Uh, that kind of disappointment and pessimism that has been created through politics or, you know, emerged through politics is not rubbing on your work in Helen other, uh, uh, endeavors.
Speaker 2 00:06:00 I'm still very enthusiastic about, uh, returning the power to the people, for the people to organize themselves, uh, demand social and political and economic justice. And, uh, 11 years, the past 11 years have, um, have been a blessing for me. I was able to be in touch and meet people from Yeman to, um, Kuwait, uh, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, uh, Tunisia, Morocco. And they are so many examples that unfortunately not all of us know about. They're examples of, um, working well together. They are right holders whose rights have been violated in a way or another, and they, uh, find enough resources among them to, um, to organize, uh, a journey. Not one action, not one time, but a journey of continuous action, um, to make their point, to demand their rights, and not just, uh, sit and wait for change to happen. And they become, um, role models, role models to their children.
Speaker 2 00:07:19 I remember once in <inaudible> here in Georgia, I was in a celebration and a called to what? And this little girl gets passed from one row to the other, and she sit in my left laugh and says, are you? I say, yes. Who are you? And she says, I am, you know, this, this, this name. And I say, which grade are you? And she said, I'm in grade three. Said, uh, how can I help you? She said, I heard that you help people organize themselves so that they demand their rights. I want to organize my, uh, uh, my colleagues in grade three to demand a right from the principal so that the bathrooms are cleaner. Can you help me? And I said, sure, I'll help you, but how do you know about this? And she said, my mother is a, is an organizer in a campaign for reading.
Speaker 2 00:08:13 And the mother has come to her house every Saturday to plan and leave this campaign to improve reading. So that's just one story, how you see a, a simple campaign around reading, not even demanding, right? Just changing a habit, uh, can build, um, a generation or an can leave an impact on the generation. Um, recently in Iraq, we've supported a campaign where, uh, students organized themselves demanding that, um, money scholarships, the university scholarships, the, um, uh, be reserved for students who cannot afford, uh, to pay the tuition. And this is already in the Iraqi law. The Iraqi law says that the government has to supply scholarships for university students who can't afford it, but it's not implemented. And they organized one action. They worked hard, they delayed it. Many times the context in Iraq isn't easy, but then when they organize the action, few, um, days later, the minister of, uh, education announced that they are allocating money for scholarships next year, 20 this year is 2023.
Speaker 2 00:09:37 That gives me a lot of hope. Um, you asked me if the, the negative, um, experience I had in desperation from the Palestinian negotiation talks with, with the occupation has, is still there with me. Uh, yes it is. But, uh, maybe I matured a little bit. I realized that, um, to win big, we need to win many smaller ones. On the way I became a little bit more patient. So I see it as all connected. The little girl in <inaudible> with the youth in, uh, Iraq with the, with the woman working against child's marriage in Lebanon. I see it all as one journey that's built on each other and no longer waiting for a big bang to change the whole Arab
Speaker 1 00:10:27 World. Tell me more about those campaigns. What did you do for women and girls and the Mina region? And then I wanna know more about how, how do you connect with those, um, maybe individuals or, you know, um, uh, subcommunities on the ground,
Speaker 2 00:10:45 We are called <unk> or we called ourselves a hell because we believe that people of the, cause those who have a personal story with the cause, like you said, the personal is political, are the most, um, equipped to demand the rights to bring about change. And they are the most deserving. So the word is from, from <unk> and the word means different things. Who <unk> who <unk> deserves our pie? The most deserving who <unk> God is the most capable of forgiveness. So the word <unk> means most capable and most deserving. And we think that people with the cause having a personal, um, struggle, they are the best equipped to lead, uh, the change to demand their rights. Now, it is maybe a little bit counterintuitive. Some people think, no, it's a burden. These women are, um, oppressed, or they face a lot of violations. It's not fair to ask them to stand up for themselves and to, um, to demand the change.
Speaker 2 00:12:11 Others should do justice to them. We don't believe that. We believe that they are the strongest despite, um, the fact that they were a victim at some point. So our role is to go from victims to survivor, to, but not stop. There we go from survivor to leader. I survived, um, let's say injustice at work as a woman, uh, I don't see myself as a vic as a victim, but that's not enough. I'm gonna lead other women at work with me to collectively demand our rights. And then we go even further from leaders to organizer. How can I organize collective action, not just demand for me and the three around me? How can I organize the sector of women working in this industry to change policies on, um, women's right at work? So you asked me, uh, what have you done for, uh, women? Um, I answer, uh, we do with them.
Speaker 2 00:13:16 We make sure that, uh, we support them, they lead and we support. They hear about us from another campaign. So we work with a group of women in Alka, in Lebanon. Uh, they are women who were we as children? They were we very young, they're older now, and they heard about us. The Woman Now Center heard about us from our work with another campaign called Families for Freedom, also a campaign led by Syrian women. So we ha we supported that campaign. It advanced this campaign, this group of women heard about us and the woman now, uh, organization. And they approached us saying, can you work with us to build a campaign against child marriage in Albu car in southern Lebanon? Also in Palestine. Um, we work with the Palestinian Drews to refuse the oblig army service in the, in the occupation army. And, uh, they heard about us from another group, Edwin Group, who we were accompanying in, in Na in Nega to, uh, resist, uh, a draft law that will confiscate their land.
Speaker 2 00:14:39 Uh, so there's this way where, um, someone is inspired by a campaign they heard about and, um, reach out to us. The second way is that, uh, we take note of, uh, a huge agreed violation that is happening, and we go look for the leaders ourselves. So few years ago, the I l O, the International Labor Organization, has completed a study on injustice that, uh, teach female teachers face in private schools in Jordan. Uh, the i o approached us and they, we said to the i o We don't work with, um, any NGO or organization. We have to work with the people of the cause themselves and continue the right holder. Uh, so can you bring those to us? And they said, we don't know where they are. Let's go together and find them. So we started going to, um, the union, the teachers union to house meetings, running one-on-ones with individual teachers.
Speaker 2 00:15:48 And then we found a group of, uh, teachers who, um, who were ready to lead, to lead this campaign. And they were ready to lead that campaign because each one of them had a story with injustice. So just like you with me, you started with my story. We always start with stories, which is also a very feminist thing to do. And from there, we move on to, uh, a journey of accompanied. So we accompanied the woman in burka to stop child's marriage. There, we accompanied the woman, uh, who are teachers in private schools to, um, stop injustice at labor, in their labor rights in private schools in Georgia.
Speaker 1 00:16:30 Amazing. So most of your work is, uh, actually, uh, on the ground. Uh, how did Covid affect, um, the work in aal and have you managed to transfer those campaigns into digital campaigns? And if you have, did it work?
Speaker 2 00:16:48 Yeah, so, um, is now a team of 15, uh, amazing people. And, um, they're also a source of, uh, huge hope for me. Um, and maybe for each other. Uh, the first thing during Covid was how do we stay as a strong team? How do we nurture ourself and take care of our, our our own motivation? So, like many of of us around the world, we went online, but we had the rituals, rituals to be connected, rituals to read and learn together. We started reflecting on these Sufi stories and to have stories to keep the, the moral morale, but also to stay connected. We would open every day with, with each other half an hour coffee and close the week together, celebrating our achievements and constant learning, um, and growth. Um, and our team, team is like divided into three units, uh, the coaching campaigns unit, and they're in charge of accompanying leaders and women, uh, in their campaigns and in introducing them to the methodology, Marshall ga and, um, the one we developed.
Speaker 2 00:18:06 And, um, and then the second unit is teaching and learning. And in it, there's a, a beautiful team that, uh, teaches organizing in workshops and in online courses and in offline courses. And then the third one is AAD Network. AAD Network is a network of leaders in the Arab world who are using our methodology, community organizing in building power, and they also produce a beautiful podcast. I hope you can hear it. It's called <inaudible>. Every episode is a story of a campaign and a group of leaders from the ground. So how do you continue that in Covid? The campaigns, of course, went offline. And now coaching became on Zoom most of the time, but a lot of the infringements and the violations did not stop because the covid stopped the world. So the teachers are now working hard to protect their rights because the rights are now even more violated during, uh, COVID.
Speaker 2 00:19:08 So we were helping them organize online. Uh, what about our learning? Uh, how do we continue our teaching program? Now we are lucky because four years ago we started teaching, um, a course online. It starts in February and ends in June, and it has a hundred students from the Arab world. Each one of them has a campaign and is leading collective effort for their rights. So we were lucky that continues because it's anyway, online. It was also a blessing that, uh, application rate to the online course rocketed. We have this year, for example, we have 570 applications for a hundred C. So we started doing more online workshops, orientation sessions, webinars, and we were skilled at it because we had started it earlier on. And that was amazing to, uh, support people stay together, build a community. Um, we worked with a group in, uh, in LID in Palestine, um, who, uh, organized themselves during that period to, um, to give support to the elderly in the community.
Speaker 1 00:20:26 I'll tell you this story, how I got to know about you. I wanted to establish a kind of a social innovation lab, um, based on, uh, commitment of social justice and gender equality. Um, so I looked at different models, really around the world. And then I got to Marshall Gangs, um, program, um, and I even contacted him. Um, and at the same time, a friend of mine had heard about you and your work, who's a Palestinian as well in the United States. And she said, oh, wow. But you know, Ms. Seren Haja actually took that program. And the amazing thing that she has done is she took it and she localized it. And I said, okay, so now here is a woman who went into this program knowing exactly what she wanted. Tell me more about even the knowledge and the knowledge transfer that comes out of this program.
Speaker 2 00:21:23 In the beginning when I said, okay, I'm gonna come back to Jordan and try this methodology, I, I learned at Harvard. And you know, Harvard is like a big institution, but at the end, does it work here? Does it fit here? And, um, and we started, there are five practices to organizing. I'll tell you quickly. The first one is how you am, for example, want you find your leadership team to bring about the change you want to build, and how do you use stories for that to that practice? One public narrative. And the second one is, how do you build relations to nurture commitment? Many people ask us like, how do I keep people committed? How do I keep people motivated? And yes, they are motivated to the cause, they are motivated to their own story, but there's also something we can do together in our relationship to motivate and protect commitment.
Speaker 2 00:22:19 How do we do it? So that's the second practice. The third practice is building a team. So I find people with the public narrative, I do my own definition of self with my story. I help others define themselves as leaders. How do we work as a team? And, and that's a whole area of the study. And it's so important. And one team is not enough. Just like in feminist theory, power. She needs to be shared. Leadership needs to be shared. So to claim that I am a, a feminist and I have one team that's not right, let's have multiple teams. Let's build the whole commun our own community of, um, of right holders in multiple teams, whether in my neighborhood, in my university, in my country, across the Arab world, how do we build and keep multiple teams of leaders and their leaders? They're not followers.
Speaker 2 00:23:16 So that's practice number three and practice number four. How do I set a strategy, an objective for the change? I want, um, a theory of change that is, uh, based in power analysis. Why power analysis? Again, feminist principles, because we need to change. Who has power? Who doesn't have power? And not just change, stop child's marriage. It's important to stop child marriage, but how do we stop child marriage with a strategy that changes the power structure in the community? So that's practice. Um, four. And the last practice is action. How do we design action and tactics and peaks and events that, uh, keep people motivated, that bring us more people to the campaign, to the movement? And there are like ways to do that. Um, so I took these, uh, practices and came here and started saying, okay, how do you do storytelling in the airport?
Speaker 2 00:24:20 It's not the same as they do it in the US or in urine. You can't walk up to someone and say, Hey, what's your story? They'll think you're weird. Like, who are you? So we, we adapt that people are used to telling stories of self, their their personal story. It's harder to tell the story of the collective. Like what's the story of women in, in, um, in Qatar as a collective? How, how did this story evolve over the past five years? Who, who even tells the story of women? Like you were saying earlier, takes generation. It's true. It takes generations. But I think that we have succeeded in the past 10 years as woman rights, uh, defenders, as feminists. The change that has happened in the past 10 years in the Arab world on woman rights is amazing. It's phenomenal. But someone needs to tell that story.
Speaker 2 00:25:18 So how do we tell our own story, our community story? And how do we decipher now? Like what's the story now, uh, with regards to woman rights, with regards to child marriage and so forth? How do we call to action? So I started, and then later with my, my team and every day actually with the team, how do we adapt this even further to our own culture? When we nurture relationships, they practice to, we host house meetings. Like this Saturday, I'm hosting a house meeting for a group of women in Jordan to come in support of a campaign, a campaign, uh, against homicide, against murder of, uh, women. How do we hold that house meeting that is, is really in line with our culture. It's not alien. Um, so anyway, to cut it short, that is the bulk of the work. But it's a beautiful experience to make it our own, to bring our culture into it.
Speaker 2 00:26:16 We document it on our website. You'll find the organizing notes from Marshall Gs translated, but you'll also find, um, a station called the House Station <unk> how to build leadership, how to build teams. There are articles and reflections written there. Um, there's our manual with the five practices available for whoever wants to read it in Arabic with anecdotes from our experience. And there is a other podcast, a story every, every time. Last, uh, episode was, uh, a campaign in Kuwait called Not, uh, it's a beautiful one. So you get to see a different reality in the Arab world in our own language and in our own experience.
Speaker 1 00:27:00 Do you, uh, involve men or, well, basically men who are decision makers in our societies? Do you involve them when it comes to campaigns about women?
Speaker 2 00:27:11 Uh, so the campaigns we have supported and the graduates of our online course, they're both, uh, led by men and women. Sometimes the topics are for women, right? And sometimes not, uh, like refusing the army service in Palestine, uh, in occupied Palestine to join the occupation army campaign, target young men because they are the ones who are, um, obliged to join the army. So it's not for women's rights, but it is a very much a feminist campaign. It's a feminist campaign because it addresses injustice. It's a feminist campaign because they're women leading it as well, although they're not obliged to, um, to serve the army themselves. But it's their brother. It's their, um, their uncle, their, you know, al does, uh, support all kinds of campaigns. And for us, all campaigns that support social justice and, uh, help marginalized communities is a feminist, uh, campaign.
Speaker 2 00:28:19 Now, with regards to campaigns that demands women's rights, and they are led by women as well, uh, yes, we engage the reengage men. They engage men without giving men the driver's seat. So, uh, LA Brunk campaign against child marriage, they build, uh, 12 teams, 12 leadership teams, and last year they broke 150 engagement. These teams, they have some men in them. They, they, uh, asked men to support in talking to the father, but the, the father who would break the engagement of his daughter or help her break the engagement. There are men that are supporting in tactics. There are men that are members in the leadership team, but the leadership is for the woman they go to, um, <unk> to, uh, the judges. They go to the she who write the, the contract. They talk to them, they share their stories, how this leads to injustice.
Speaker 2 00:29:24 And that's why the even the power dynamic in the family with the husband, with the son, with the mother-in-law, that's also shifts. Last month we had the convening of 18 campaigns here in the death in Georgia. And I, we were listening. They were sharing the learning they had with each other and the tactic that worked and how they stay committed and motivated. And one woman said that she was out in the neighborhood collecting signature on a petition. Uh, she and her campaign were leaving, and her son came back home saying that, uh, my friends in the street told me that your mom is, uh, leaving a campaign and she's collecting petitions. And his mom said, yes, indeed, that's what we are doing. And he said, I'm very proud of you. She was moved.
Speaker 1 00:30:15 Lovely. Of course,
Speaker 2 00:30:16 These things matter, you know, in the dynamics in the family. Of
Speaker 1 00:30:19 Course, of course it starts, it all starts with the family. Who are the funders of such campaigns? Uh, who cares that much about those many communities here and there?
Speaker 2 00:30:32 So here to answers, answer number one is that also in line with feminist principles, we are all resourceful. We have a lot of resources. We are rich regardless of what made us think that we are lacking. I mean, yeah, there is economic injustice. I'm not denying that. But there are resources. So when we coach a campaign, we always start with, let's take stock of our resources. We have, if you have 18 people in the room, you have 18 homes, you have 18 rooftops, you probably have, uh, all these, uh, bodies and feet. We have creativity, we have love, we have singing, we have, uh, acting, we have, uh, cooking. We have, we have so many things if we are a community. So first answer is we have to confirm first and take stock of the resources we have. And once we do, you realize that you don't need much for a campaign like the child's mar the anti-child marriage campaign in, uh, in Lebanon, the woman who were married as children, they to go visit the next door and to share her story and the impact of child's marriage on her with the mother, with the little, with the teenager there.
Speaker 2 00:31:46 Even transportation, not that much. When you're working in a, in a community and you have multiple teams, you have a team for every neighborhood, maybe sometimes you need communication, uh, cards or a little bit for transportation. When you have a demonstration, maybe you need to print a banner, but it's nicer if you draw it. So once you shift your thinking about what are the resources you need, when you talk about a, a, a campaign on the ground, the missing resources are not much campaign we worked with in the past against what so-called honor crimes. They sold bracelets, they sold t-shirts, they sold monks. Um, they found the prince houses, and they've convinced them of the campaign, the printing shops joined them. So they printed that for them. Pro bono, uh, another campaign made a small font of interested men and woman like you and me, and we put, uh, hundred jds there, 200 jds, $200 there.
Speaker 2 00:32:45 And that's need a small fund that they draw. So that's the second answer. And the last answer is our fees a health fees. So I told you about the campaign called Stand Up with the Teachers for Women Teachers Rights in Jordan. The i o covered our fees. So we didn't ask the teachers to pay our, our our fees. The i o uh, contracted us. They paid our fees. Um, the <unk> campaign, child's marriage, women now, the center, the organization supporting them, they contracted us. They paid our piece. So we tried to find the best partner, a value-based partner to come in and support the campaign, because they care for the cause. So that's the third answer. Oh, love it. We are surrounded as women and the woman we work with, they're surrounded by a discourse that is discouraging, that is undermining that, that wants to convince her that she will fail.
Speaker 2 00:33:48 Although there are so many examples. These examples are not mainstream. I tried in this podcast to, to share as many stories and examples to change that discourse. Unfortunately, when we work with a campaign led by women and men in the same actually, uh, people, sometimes they're relatives, they're colleagues, they're friends. They say like, oh, you think that you will be able to change that reality. It's bigger than me. Or, oh, so did you focus on earning 11? Shouldn't you focus on, uh, upbringing of your children? What this, um, political space is not? Uh, good for you. You may be requested for summons, for questioning. So all this discourse, who is paying you? Is this a foreign agenda? Is this against revision? Like everything to this power? And that narrative exists, and we, um, and you and I, and thank you for this podcast, we need to change that narrative.
Speaker 2 00:34:52 There are stories of success. There is a campaign we accompanied called ibk in Jordan, parents of people with disability. They want the government to change the way the clinics, public clinics work and give them more, uh, services, especially vocational. They succeeded. They worked for a year during Covid. It wasn't easy. It's not like, oh, for people with disability, let's give them all right, that's not how it works. They work really hard. The Minister of Health refute refused to see them in the beginning. They sent him a thousand messages on WhatsApp, each one with her story saying, we need to see you. He saw them. They collected 12,000 petition signatures that happened. We should stop saying that. It is impossible. So I feel the first hurdle is each one around us, that it should not be acceptable for someone to tell anyone. You cannot, it is not possible.
Speaker 2 00:35:48 The political picture is hard. Who, what agenda do you carry? You know? And instead say, yes, there are examples. They're recorded on our podcast. You read, you hear them in your podcast as well. So we need to change that discourse. That's the first hurdle. And the second hurdle, I think is the tightening of, uh, political space. Now, in each one of the Arab countries, there's the electronic crime law. You worry to write your opinions, uh, openly against normalization. For example, you worry writing your opinion against arrest, illegal administrative detention because there is this electronic crime law.
Speaker 1 00:36:32 Whereas you would think that the role would be to protect us, right? We are, um, harassed online. Um, the, uh, the harassment we face online actually can be rendered and and transferred into the physical, you know, sphere as well. Uh, and you would think that this is their role to protect us, a woman. Uh, instead what they do is, as you said, um, unfortunately, the spaces of freedom, uh, the freedom of speech in the Arab world have really shrunk.
Speaker 2 00:37:03 Exactly. And what do we do in this situation? That's the question. The hurdle is, as you rightly said, um, freedom of expression, freedom of organizing and freedom of, um, associations. Unions, associations have decreased and they're decreasing. What do we do? Do we say, let's give up, let the media handle the war. Do we say, uh, let public opinion leaders and influencers call for the, for our rights. Uh, let amnesty International Human Rights watch raises? Or do we say, okay, what are the pathways Avenue that we can act given this restriction? Because acting in on its own is resilience, is resistance. What other tactics, how can we protect ourselves? What digital security do we need to learn? Are there lawyers on call to help us? And here, I think comes the the last point I'll make. Um, yes, we are hopeful, and yes, we are, uh, romantic and dreamy.
Speaker 2 00:38:10 Nothing wrong with that. We are also realistic. Um, realistic means that in this current culture and narrative, this current restriction on freedom of expression, it'll probably take us four or five attempts to achieve the change. We want to think that we will do a demonstration or, um, a call to action. And the word should change and the decision maker should change his mind. And people should stop cringing or violating labor rights, in my opinion, is naive, given the context. So anyone we work with, we say, this is gonna take you six, seven attempts. How will you be resilient? How will you go on? You're not gonna win from the first go, not the second go. Maybe in a different country, maybe in island, maybe in Norway, in this part of the word. It's gonna take you four or five attempts. What do you need to do?
Speaker 2 00:39:08 And you know, the, the answer is at the, at the heart of what you and I believe, which is we build other people's leadership for, for, for us to continue for new generations of leaders. And we build multiple teams in our campaign. Because if one team is tired, one team is, um, uh, it dismantles, then there are other teams that will continue the, the carrying of the torch. And we change the discourse that it'll take more than one attempt. And we know that. And we are willing to keep going until we win and we will be creative. So I think that's the reframing of the, uh, success mentality and the discourse of what gets us there. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:39:52 Uh, never give up. Um, I love it. It takes several attempts, 4, 5, 6, 7, no one knows to build your resilience. And you have to be resilient, not just to achieve what you wanted to achieve, but also to pass it on. Um, and this is exactly what you have done Nestle. And, um, I can't tell you how grateful I am for your work and what you are doing, um, for all of us. You have that heart of a leader. Uh, thank you for doing this. For all of us, all women, all feminists, men and women who believe in social justice, on um, and our ability and our ability to be, uh, the agents of our own stories.
Speaker 2 00:40:35 Thank you so much. A beautiful words to thanks. End our conversation. I love it. I hope
Speaker 1 00:40:41 We'll meet you. Thank you, Ms. Again. Pleasure. Really, really a
Speaker 2 00:40:44 Pleasure. Jordan, or in Kata or whatever, um, you will be, I'd love to introduce you to, um, my team.
Speaker 1 00:40:53 Thank you for listening and watching to stay up to date with Woman of the Middle East podcast. You can subscribe and don't forget to rate us. If you would like to contact me directly, you can do so on Instagram or Twitter or via email. This is Woman of the Middle East podcast.
