Aflevering 4: Yara Al-Adib over leren nee te zeggen, de zoektocht naar evenwicht en de bijdrage aan safe spaces

Episode 4: Yara Al-Adib on learning to say no, the quest for balance and contribution to safe spaces

[klik hier voor de Nederlandse transcriptie van dit gesprek]

“And she was always telling me: “I am giving you what my father didn’t give me, I am treating you like your brothers.” Which is true by the way – she did treat me like my brothers, but there is a very thin line. There is a little bit of hypocrisy. Because when it comes to sexuality and what I can do as a woman.. No no no we will not treat you as a man.”

[general intro]

>>> You are listening to Let's Talk, a podcast where the talking points consist out of impactful initiatives, strong support offerings, and participation as a catalyst for innovation. Your host is Bart Wuyts, CEO of the group Blenders and WEB, the incubator of inclusive workplaces and innovative strategies concerning entrepreneurship, sustainability and job placement, among others.

[intro speaker]

>>> Our guest on this episode is Yara Al-Adib, who has been residing in Belgium for the past 8 years. Yara was born in Syria and has also studied in Lebanon and Italy. She is a trained designer and is well known for her initiative called ‘From Syria With Love’: a catering service that empowers women and challenges mainstream views on Syrian culture. We catch up with Yara during a momentous time in her life as she transitions from being a goal oriented planner to someone who is led by her heart and passions. Get ready for an energetic conversation as we delve into what makes Yara such a strong believer in empowerment and who inspires and empowers her.

I am on a sabbatical now, I am not working for the past 3 months.. [This is really a new person that is sitting in front of us!] – Yes I go to extremes so I can move towards the center. I have taken 3 months off already and it is really hard for me not to do something. But I am getting used to it now and it is really nice to just let things sink in and process everything that has happened. I was always doing too much.. And this has helped me a lot. And now I am reconsidering everything. I mean: From Syria With Love has been going on for such a long time and I was thinking by myself – actually it is ending soon, From Syria With Love. [Really ending? Or is it ending for you?] Ending. From Syria With Love is me. Without me there is no From Syria With Love – unfortunately. That is one of the pitfalls. Because I am like the generator and when I am not there it is coming down.

Can you explain to me in just 2 sentences what From Syria With Love is?

From Syria With Love started as a dream to bring a new perspective to Syria other than the refugee crisis. So we do it through food: we tell stories of Syria through our food. And it is purely a project of women being empowered, housewives being empowered. And it worked. It did deliver the message, it got the message across.

‘Women being empowered’: where you aiming at a specific group of women?

Well actually not, but I attracted a certain group of women somehow. I was focussing more on women who had worked in the past but somehow I just ended up with housewives. Maybe deep down inside I knew that these women have the hardest path towards finding work in society because they have no professional background. And I did actually attract back then 4 housewives who were all chefs by nature which is typical Syrian. I didn’t even ask about their chef techniques I just asked ‘do you wanna work?’.

They were all Syrian?

Yes and at a certain moment an Iraqi women joined us. Two of the women had worked as kindergarten teachers before but like a very small amount of hours. And the other two had been housewives throughout all their lives.

What did participating in From Syria With Love do with them?

They became very different people. When I first met them, in 2017, they were very powerless women. They were lost, they felt so displaced. They felt worthless because they couldn’t find their meaning in life besides being a mom and a wife. Giving them a purpose helped them find again their ground and their self-esteem. And I saw it growing throughout the years. In the beginning when I told them that we had to prepare an event for 20 persons they would be panicking. Now when we have an event for 200 persons they are not bothered at all.

But you just said that you will stop. What will happen to them? Did they find another job already or are they not interested in doing so?

Basically what my intention was with From Syria With Love was to create a sort of platform for these women, not for me to keep being the driving force in this project. And like I said I ended up with housewives who have no digital skills, no professional background, no language skills,.. And at a certain moment I started putting them in the forefront, to sell. But it was really not for them. And throughout these years I looked for someone to take my place. I couldn’t find anyone. And there was a moment after corona that hit me and I was like ‘you know, if I leave this goes, it collapses’. And it made me so sad. But it is what it is. I had two choices: either to stay or to leave. To do it half-half was like physically impossible. Because From Syria With Love is not a fulltime job, and then I would be teaching my courses at Thomas More as a graphic design professor and on the weekends I would work in catering. Okay I don’t mind that but I had no more space for me. I was doing too much, you know?

Yeah and I also think that it’s because it is really connected to who you are.. But let’s make a bridge here because we really dived into it.. Who is Yara? What was your childhood dream? What is your ambition, who are you?

That is a good question and that is what I have been working on actually since corona: deep diving into my soul and looking for who I am really. I did grow up in a very Middle Eastern background of, like, ‘you need a degree because that is how you thrive in this world’, ‘you need to constantly be doing the best of the best because that is how you stand out’. So there was a lot of – of course unconscious – peer pressure, family pressure. And that is what my parents did: they invested their money and their energy in our education. Which was amazing but it came with a lot of consequences that of course you realize when you’re 30 and you realize like ‘who am I without my job?’, ‘who am I without From Syria With Love?’.. So now going into therapy and movement I realize that I am still someone who empowers people, that is still part of who I am. I am still a business woman who loves to create and bring things together and.. But the achieving part of me has dimmed a bit. It is now more the being that I focus on: who am I truly. And I believe now more and more that we all have treasures inside of us and they are all buried with our ego and our limited beliefs and our brainwashed way of living. Now I am digging to find my true purpose. I am very close to finding it. I feel that again it will be about women for some reason – maybe it is because I am a woman. And also again with migrant background. Because I feel that in the Middle East we have been tamed and shut down for so many decades, that I cannot handle that bullshit anymore. You know in this movement therapy exploration so much anger would come out and I was wondering ‘where is this anger coming from?’ – and it was all from suppression.

Ever since I was a kid I always had this resistance against being put in a box, I always hated it. My mom said ‘you are a rebel’. And it is true, especially when I don’t believe the rules are convincing. I was always like why do I have to do things a certain way “because we say so” or “because society says so”.. And for sure during these four years I have been challenging why we should do certain things a certain way.

Because we had no choice: we were born Muslim, we had to follow the certain way of things, and we should keep our mouth shut and just move on. So now I feel what all women feel, and I want to give them a platform where they can scream and release and first of not only their anger but also their femininity. This is something that I also lost when I was doing From Syria With Love: the doing, this masculine energy, I am very good at it. But I am so good at it that it kept me going for so long, that I have dimmed my femininity. The femininity is the surrendering, the being, the softness. But now my quest is to find the balance.

I do believe that a lot of women lack masculine energy and that is the energy of manifesting things. Because a lot of women are more in their hearts and in their emotions and not in the practical sense – which I think we all need as women. And we need the other part: the nourishing, loving part, the part that helps connect people.

It is about accepting what is. Because you know, we all have our rhythms and patterns from childhood and I have the pattern of saving people.

That is interesting, elaborate!

So, I am a saviour. Since I was a kid I was always the one that would be in between people fixing problems. And I came here and I worked for a year and was like ‘fuck this job, I want to help – I cannot just do things like sitting behind the computer, it doesn’t give me fulfillment.’ And I realized that I was always when I saw a problem or a challenge, I always ran towards it in order to fix it. And now I am in this place where I say ‘let it be, maybe it is meant to be there’. Because if I am saving you all the time, then you will never find the ways to save yourself.

Very interesting. You say a lot of very valuable things. Now, we are in a project where we are focussing on employment of women, and especially women with migrant background, and longer educated. Still we see in Flanders that there is apparently an amount of hurdles or bottlenecks that prevents them from participating to their full potential in the labour market. Why is that and what needs to be done?

I like the question. Well it is very specific when it comes to Middle Eastern women. First of all, in the Middle East we are not raised to become employed women. It is always a plus, it is never a default. On the contrary for men. If you want to study, it is always a plus. Of course it depends where you come from and your social status and.. But it is always an extra. So women have not been trained, or have not been pushed to their potential there. And I see a lot of women actually in the Middle East who are very book smart and very intelligent, who fight for their education. But then they come into this real world and they are not even seen as women. Again because they’re second class. If you apply for a job, they’ll take the man.

And now you are talking about the Middle East culture [most of the Middle East yes] and not about the employment here in Belgium?

 Yes. But if they come they will never think otherwise.

They come to Belgium and [it is that paradigm that they are starting from]. Yes, they still think “I am still second class”, “I am not enough”, “I am not capable”.. There is a lot of this ‘lack mindset’: lack, not enough,.. A lack of self worth!

Self-limiting belief as we call it?

Definitely. And there are so many kinds of persona’s of how different women in the Middle East direct themselves.. I am not the most typical because I also was raised outside of the Middle East for quite some time. So I left  home when I was 17, I kind of explored,.. But I still felt that I had my limitations. I still felt that my parents still where my mentor and it was like “yeah you can go but we still have limits.”

And it is a feeling that you carry from generations before you.

For sure. So either you have the limiting belief that you are not enough, that already blocks you from the beginning. Or you have gone through some sort of experience in the past and you have been shut down or tamed, and you’re like ‘why should I try anyway?’.

And I remember when I was born – I am the only girl in between 2 boys.. My mom has felt this lack, she has always felt that her father loved the boys more than the women. And she was always trying her utter best to be seen. She took the trajectory of ‘I am gonna do everything as my father likes it so I can be seen.’ And I see how she raised me and she has high standards, ultimate high expectations. And she passed it on to me. And she was always telling me “I am giving you what my father didn’t give me, I am treating you like your brothers.” Which is true by the way – she did treat me like my brothers, but there is a very thin line. There is a little bit of hypocrisy. Because when it comes to sexuality and what I can do as a woman.. No no no we will not treat you as a man.

It is really very – I don’t wanna call it nasty but – it is a very complicated web of what is expected and what not. And it is not easy.

Would you say in a way that your mom empowered you? Or who was your inspiration or your role models?

My mom definitely. And I do see it sometimes in her: when she sees me achieving she feels she is achieving. Not to say that that is the right way of raising your child, but she does feel that my success is linked to her success.

Now having said that, how can we help – here in today’s world, in this society, in this culture? Because we need you, we need you also in the labour market. And it is – as you mentioned yourself – an important way of getting some fulfillment in your life.

[Yeah I think the question is: how can people who have been living here for generations, create the same safer and braver spaces that you create naturally?]

I think that ‘safe space’ is the word. And it is funny that you mention this because my next project is going to be called safe space. Because that is very important: to be safe and to feel safe enough to actually speak your utter truth and say what your true desire is. You know, because I know a lot of women who have huge dreams and they never even dare to share it with themselves because of this feeling of ‘what am I even talking about, this is way bigger than me..’.

And I believe that creating safe space comes with other women, and specifically women that they can relate to. I sometimes feel that as Arab women we are very inspired by Western women, but we always feel that ‘yeah but she was raised differently so she’s different’. And when I see an Arab women who has done a lot, I at least start feeling so powerful. I can relate. She comes from my background. So to answer your question: I feel like it is going to have to do something with safe circles to talk about what their fear is. Because it is all coming from fear: all these limitations are fear-based.

So first: relating to other women. But also letting them know that it is okay to feel the fear. Because there is shame also on that.

It is almost a matter of collective trauma therapy.

Yes definitely. And I see the work that I am doing now – I am reflecting on my mom, and sometimes we have clashes and I wonder ‘where are you bringing these thoughts from?’. But then I remember myself that I need compassion and I need to meet her where she is because I am doing the hard work she didn’t get to do. And I need to know where she comes from. And I see that clash also when I am with Belgian women. Compared to all my Belgian friends I am always trying to prove myself. And at a certain moment I was like ‘why am I like that?’.

It is because I wanna be seen.

It is because my mom said ‘you’re gonna be just like your brothers and even better’ and I want to prove that.

Probably that is even the case with many Belgian women as well?

Of course. But here women definitely have more freedom to be whoever they want. And freedom is not just freedom to start a business. It is the freedom to just be you. Whether it is like me: I am more of a masculine woman or whether you want to be more of a soft woman, or a gay woman. Nobody can just be themselves. If you can’t be yourself as a human, then how can you be anything? Then it is just a mask.

So creating the conditions to be able to ground..

Yeah and to connect to their true selves, like what is your true desire, let’s talk about your dreams here.

And is that something that you are aiming for now in your next challenge?

I would love to do that. I don’t know how, but I want to also make it.. I don’t want to make it fluffy and in the air.. I want these women to go out and like – make it tangible. Sometimes I think.. I wanna work with organisations, I thought of having a center, I always think that it is easier not to reinvent the wheel and to go to places where the women are already there and the need for these women to connect is already clear.

I for sure see you doing something like train the trainers for example for people who employ women, for them to be able to create a safe space – so that those women will bring their authentic self more in their work. And then it will be as if you have 10 new employees while in fact it are the same people but now they are showing their true selves in the work that they do.

Definitely. I mean, when I got into this conscious world, I was like really at awe. At awe about how unconscious we are. And how unconsciously we do things.

Absolutely! How did you get there?

Actually I was in a difficult relationship. We were struggling a lot and I went to therapy and from there it is a rabbit hole. You start wanting more and start digging for more and.. I went into coaching. Yes, coaching for me was the first step. Then I heard things like the ‘law of attraction’ and I was like yeah I heard of that stuff before but what does that really mean?

Also very important in why people don’t feel the creativity and to let it come out, is that you need to feel safe. You need your basic needs to be met. If I am having issues with my husband at home constantly, and I have this dream to create a business, this dream will die – because I am dealing with first hand conflict constantly. Or I have to find a job and I am pushed by the OCMW constantly or by anyone.. Where is creativity, you know? And then I can go into the topic of creativity. Creativity comes from sexual energy, the energy of flowing and letting life go through you.. How do I get that if I am not feeling safe? And something that I also learned from doing From Syria With Love is that it is really nice to do solo work, but the impact is nothing when compared to when you work with a big group of people or a community that has the same values and mindset. Because then you triple, quadruple the impact.

Can you share some of these insights you’ve got with these 4 or more women that you reached with From Syria With Love?

I give you an example of Ahlan, she is one of the chefs who.. – for me she is a super power engine, a horse, a dynamo,.. And she is illiterate. She was married when she was fifteen, she has been in a village, she didn’t know anything about life but her husband and their kids. So she came, she did the typical trajectory of all refugees: came by boat blablabla.. And when I first met her she was so happy that she met a Syrian woman. And the first thing she told me was “but you don’t look Syrian” and I asked her why, and she said “because you are eating what the Belgians eat and you dress like the Belgians and..” and I laughed and I realized that she doesn’t even come from the city, she comes from the village. She was one of the first that I had encounters with and I started connecting a lot to her and every time that I would tell her to do something she had these very big YES’ses, like ‘yes I can do this!’ and she had these very big NO’s of insecurity. For instance she was really good at making big amounts of food because that is what they did where she came from. But then to work with pastries or delicacy, she was just too rough, she couldn’t do it. And she would just be like ‘don’t give this task to me!’ and every time she would resist I would tell her ‘you have to learn this’ and she was like ‘but I will fail’ and I was like ‘okay when you fail we’ll do it again, that is not a problem’. And I worked with her on ‘don’t tell me what you can’t do, learn’. If you don’t know, learn. If you don’t know, ask. Ans with time she started to gain more confidence in pastries and every time she succeeded in something she told me ‘look, I did it!’ and I was like ‘you see, you can do everything’. And that for me is very powerful.

But also one of the other chefs: Dyaa, she was one of the teachers and she has this sort of authority personality in her because she was a teacher. So she has this persona in her. And I wanted to put her as the team lead because I need to put her in a position where she belongs. And it was very funny.. She was leading, so I was not interacting directly with all the team members. If there was a catering I would talk to her and she would talk to the team. And I didn’t question what she did with the team. I didn’t want to micro manage because that would make things too complicated. But there where moments that she was playing this big bossy boss and there would be clashes. And there was a very big part of me that wanted to fix the situation but also to fix her, like ‘Dyaa this is not a black or white thing, you need to be more diplomatic and..’. And I started to do this but I started clashing with her because I started putting ego on ego and that was not a good idea, or taking things personally.. And then when I started meeting her where she was, I started telling her ‘you can do things a little bit softer, say things a little bit nicer’ so we worked on how she can manage in a more soft dynamic that still had her power, but was met with less resistance in that sense. And I could feel it. Every time that I would talk with the chefs they would tell me ‘talk to Dyaa, she knows everything’ so they gave her this kind of pedestal thing – which I am not a big fan of but I understand that I cannot fix everything. But I also created this family feel, this family vibe in the team which made me very proud because we have this hidden competitive instinct in all of us humans but in the Middle East we can be a bit envious, a bit jealous, especially among women. Especially when it comes to cooking also. I remember the first time we got together and we had to cook and I was telling them single orders and I told Ahlan ‘yesterday you cooked this, today you cook that” and she was like “but why are you changing the dish? Did I do anything bad or is she better than me?’ and then I said ‘no, we need to talk about this, this is very important: we all cook the same dishes and there is no one cooking better than the other one. We are all one here.’ And that took some time to sink in. But now when I see them, they are all friends now. They all became this family, and that is something that makes me proud.

Will they continue working after you stop with From Syria With Love?

Well, the limiting thing is – and that is something out of my control – they were all under the OCMW, so they all had their leefloon [allowances] because I could’t staff everyone fully, so I am afraid a lot of them won’t continue. Because they already have an income. What I gave them was just extra.

What would you suggest employers to do differently with respect to hiring and giving chances to women with migrant background.

Actually the one thing I realised ever since I came to Belgium is that they always use language as an excuse for like not being accepted in a job. Which I find sometimes quite limiting and quite narrow minded because not all jobs need the language. There are jobs that you can manage without. But I always feel like you need a prerequisite in this and I hear this a lot from these women or even the men: learning the Dutch language is not easy. It is easy for a 25 year old guy but for a 45 year old woman, some who have never been to school.. yeah good luck with that.

I mean now we are doing a podcast, I should be doing it in Dutch, I understand 95% Dutch, but I never invested my time in learning the language. I invested my time in doing other things. But if I kept it as this limiting thing, then I wouldn’t have contributed.

So language barrier. What else.

Yes language. And I think coaching, but from the perspective of people who come from the same background. Coaching on the business aspect but realistic coaching. Realistic meaning meet them where they are. If someone wants to do a project and we say ‘you have to do a business canvas’ and yeah you teach them what it is. But it might take them a little bit longer than someone else. So coaching and mentoring but one to one. I feel that there is a lot of power to that and I think a lot of organisations do that, like for example Starters Labo: they do connect you to people who have the same background as you.

Do you have experience yourself with Starters Labo?

No. I heard about them and I applied for a job once, as a coach, and they didn’t take me for the language. Which I understand and I am a bit pissed off about. But I get it: maybe I was not meant to be there.

So coaching in the sense of one to one but I think it is about having this mentor that you look up to, someone who has been in the country for a few years longer than you feel like ‘yeah I want to be like him’, ‘he get’s me’, ‘I can relate’ – that is very important: the word relating. And coaching I mean not only the business coaching but more the life coaching: that is the part where you have the limiting beliefs and all the ‘I can’t do this’ – so working on these limitations.

A lot of employers say that they would love to hire them but they say  ‘I am not reaching them’ or ‘I don’t find them’.

Is that the truth though? Do they say that to you? They can’t find them?

There is a lot of them but I think lots of them are also hiding. It is a good question. But I really see it as something that is not the job of the employer actually. I think this is more the job of the integration in the country. And this starts a bit earlier than you applying for a job. It starts with the inburgering [civic integration] and I heard about the courses in the inburgering, and they are sometimes quite basic. Maybe there should be more of an advanced inburgering, like inburgering meaning not only to relate to the others around you, but come and connect to yourself. This sounds very big, but I think a lot of people need that.

I can imagine that this kind of life coaching is something that we need to give everybody.

Definitely. But especially the migrants that come, they need this. It is about finding your ground: if you come here, you’re new, and your feet are not on the ground, nothing works for you.

How long are you here?

8 years. But I come from a background where I was pushed as a woman to achieve. I was not dimmed. So I already had my warrior behind me: my mom pushing me. My father also. [They are also here?] They live in Spain now. So I always had that support. But I am not the most common. This kind of backbone, the support, they don’t have it. They never had it. And that is why I started From Syria With Love actually: I was sitting in the train station of Brussels North, you know, where the center is where they apply for asylum. And the constant dialogue that I was hearing was ‘did you get papers?’, ‘where are you settled?’, you know, they were all talking about basic needs. Basic needs: eat, sleep,.. And this takes energy.

Another dialogue was ‘the OCMW they are up my ass they want me to work, they want me to study,..’. They don’t feel like they’re understood. Which I understand. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s a huge system and we can’t come and fiddle with the system.

You say there is some work to do, some very valuable work, in the inburgerings trajectories.

Oh my God. Do you know anything about these courses? Some of them are like ‘how do you book a train..’.

I can imagine that it is very basic. How nice would it be if you would be able to lift that up one or two levels?

I already have goosebumps, I am already part of it!

This is where it should start. I mean, I went through the whole trajectory of being a refugee, I went to the camp and I went through the whole process. And I said to myself: inburgering should start in the camp. Because they have nothing to do – there is really nothing. The food is not even good so there is nothing to even enjoy in these camps. Find them there! They are all there, all in one place, get them to work: whatever it is. I remember when I was there – I was in one of the camps in Sint-Truiden – the food.. I am not going to talk about the food that was cut out of the plastic bags and put in front of us.. and I thought by myself why don’t they hire the people that are here anyway, to cook? And one time I asked that question and they were like ‘yeah regulations, safety,..’ And I was like ‘here we go again..’. It is the bureaucracy that also limits. And sometimes it is just so frustrating.

And it is beautiful as well: you guys are very structured and it is quite nice. But leave some space to just be. And I feel this underlying tension and this frustration. And Belgian by their nature are very composed human beings: they don’t show anger. And this can be very dangerous. Because sometimes when they snap.. And I cannot blame them because it comes from them being tamed.

And I saw it actually – you know: funny side story. I was in the spa last week, in the sauna. Ans I slipped and I fell on my back. It is not a nice place to fall on your back, in the slippery water,.. And I do have back issues so the first thing that came to my mind was like ‘shit, that is the last thing I need right now’. I look around and I kid you not: everyone is just still. Nobody reacted, nobody moved. Everyone was like, almost freezing. And I was like ‘okay maybe I should get up now and pretend as if nothing happened because apparently nothing did happen’ and I moved and then a woman came and she asked ‘alles goed?’ [is everything okay?] and I was like ‘yeah all is perfect actually, what are we even talking about.. what is the problem here?’ And I felt so not seen, so unsupported at that moment, that the first comment that came to my mind was ‘what kind of cold blooded people are this?’ I was quite judgemental but I was quite shocked at their reaction. And I understand that it is not about being cold blooded. You guys can be the warmest creatures but it is just all so tamed and composed, that nobody is themselves anymore. Everyone is playing a role. And you see it. I finished all this dilemma en then I go, it is a Saturday, it is Paasvakantie [Easter Holidays], everyone is drinking but with this straight, sober face, there is this heavy energy and I am like ‘fuck, what is wrong with people – you should be in the spa, you should chill now’. There is so much unseen tension. And when you become very connected to yourself you can read this energy, you can sense it. So I was with a friend and she’s Belgian and I asked her ‘what is this energy?’ and she was like ‘just protect yourself and don’t let it block you’. And I was like ‘but I feel it, I cannot help it..’.

And I went back home and I was processing every thing and I realised that this kind of ‘cold effect’ that I got, was probably mirroring what was happening inside of me and how I treat myself. Because if I was a bit more slow or I showed a bit more emotion, or if I would have said ‘Au’ - I didn’t even make any sound, I just got up and pretended as if nothing happened – and so they did the same! And so it came from me: I was the one that was pretending that nothing happened and all that. It is so sad that we all do this.

It feels as if we can continue for hours, we are making your task more difficult.

[It’s good, I will be very inspired while editing this podcast.]

Because we would always like to keep it more or less within the time range of half an hour.

[That ship has sailed.]

[It’s a challenge for you Bart: what kind of closing question can you pose in order to find a closing in this conversation that can of course go on because we’ll need at least 3 more hours or so..]

Usually I ask you to..

[Yes, I was faster]

[I have closing remark. Recently I learned that there is more diversity within one group than between groups. Is this something that rings true to you? Because you have been working with lots of people..]

I mean.. There is diversity within us so it is normal: we all have small parts of us.. The challenge or the way that you will find it is to make sure that everyone is being themselves. Which is not always the case. Half of us all the time hide our true selves. And with growing and ageing and work you also start to discover new pieces of yourself. Like me: I am 34 now and there are pieces of me that I am like ‘who is this person’. It was in me, but it was hidden and dusty. Diversity is definitely within us as humans, within one person, in a family. But we need space to accept it.

[And this means when, as a company or as an employer, you’re doing your work on inclusion well, it doesn’t mean that you need to attract lots of new people. Because the diversity that is there and that is present, will be seen.]

Voilà. It is just shedding a light on it and giving it a safe space to be seen.

Thank you very much.

[outro]

>>> You have been listening to Let's Talk, the podcast where we feed the dialogue around inclusion in the labour market, highlight impactful initiatives and let lesser heard voices have their say. Were you captivated, did this conversation make you think, would you like to be one of our next guests yourself? Let us know, follow us on social media and be sure to subscribe to this podcast series!