My name is Iman, I am 33 years old and I am the Spanish coordinator for this project. I was born and raised in Tangier, North of Morocco and North of Africa. A tricky place, so close and so far from Europe…

Right now I work as intercultural trainer in Madrid at Progestion combined with my translation work which I studied in Granada, South of Spain. I enjoy a lot my work! To the extend that sometimes I don’t even think about it as “job”! Working on Empowerment, integration, diversity, minorities is a huge opportunity to me to learn more and more about myself and about society.

I’ve been involved in this arena in a professional way 10 years ago. I guess that being women, being raised in a traditional way in a Muslim country, being educated in a European education system and having emigrated to Europe to live at the age of 18 years old are facts that made me think over and over ideas and strategies that would give me strength and persistence to overcome all the obstacles that day by day I have to face… And then I knew that for me that was empowerment on the personal and individual level… As time and experiences passed by, I realized the need to empower not only the individual (which could have negative effects), but it has to reach the communities too, the smallest and the biggest one…
I’m full of faith and hope, we are all here to learn and share… I’m eager to meet you all and keep on learning from you! See you soon!

My name is Laura. I’m 40 years old and I’m from Spain. My husband and I have two kids, and I can certainly say without a doubt that they are the best thing we’ve ever done. They are 9 and 6 years old, so I have just started the game 🙂

What I like most is to spend time with my friends and family around the table, having breakfast or dinner and having a good conversation. I love travelling and meeting new people, learning about their culture and eating food from other countries.

My friends describe me as an open minded, outgoing and sweet person. I love listening to other people’s stories and lives so I’m sure I’ll enjoy our meeting in Brighton very much.

It’s been a looooong time since the last time I had to speak, think and work in English so I apologize for my mistakes. I’m glad I’ll brush my English up and learn from you all.

If I had to explain my mission in life, I would say that I came here to help others to be happy. How do I do it? I work as a psycologist in a non profit association called Progestión. I work with migrant women with low resources at social risk of exclusion. I feel lucky because it gives me the opportunity to support them and learn from them too. Not only they are strong, resilient, smart but most of them have a very positive outlook on life. I provide psychological support in order to enhance their self-steem and their personal resources so they can be ready to face life challenges. I also encourage them to participate in public spaces so they can feel and act as full citizens because that´s what they are. I encourage them to develop a positive attitude in life.

I want to share a video that I found on the Internet with all of you. It’s just one of the millions of stories we can find in our countries, next to us, very close to us. I hope you like it.

When my partners and I enhance other women’s empowerment, they become more self-reliant and self-confident. They believe in themselves and they are ready to participate in public spaces such as NGOs as volunteers, political parties, or any other community activity they like.

What is important when working with empowerment and antidiscrimination is to be a good listener, point out all the achievements the person has reached, believe in people’s kindness and change of being, and that there’s always a new starting point