Traveling far from home with hopes of making a difference, I felt isolated, vulnerable, and momentarily silenced. For the first time, I experienced a panic attack, realizing that even as a strong, outspoken woman, I could be brought to silence.
This opened my eyes to the struggles many young girls face—those unable to express their pain, often silenced by fear. Determined to turn this experience into purpose, I launched project Hamro Bahini (Our Young Sisters) to create safe spaces for young girls in Nepal to find their voices and learn about their health. Starting with SRHR literacy, we’ve reached thousands, empowering girls to speak up and lead healthy, informed lives. This work led to United For Impact, now reaching lives across Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.
Resilience isn’t just surviving hardship; it’s using it to drive change for others. Honored to continue building a world where every young girl has the courage and support to thrive.
The resilience needed by our incredible team in Lebanon at CONCAT Tech of refugee and female developers over the last 4 years has been incredible. Sadly we were forced into resilience there, rather than it being a natural characteristic but having survived the Beirut explosion, covid 19, electricity blackouts out, broken financial institutions and now the ongoing war there. I would say we are pretty resilient at leading change in the Middle East tech sector no matter what is thrown at us.
I’d like to suggest the Olives & Heather team - especially our Gaza-based team members, who continue showing up and working their arses off amidst the atrocities taking place in Palestine. Working out of makeshift coworking spaces and getting nifty with eSims and solar panels; they are the definition of resilient. Growing up in a country that has been under occupation for 76 years, sumud (steadfastness) and sabr (patience) are two characteristics every Palestinian is forced to embody - in an addition to resilience. And it’s not just our people in Gaza; our team members have been displaced to Egypt, their descendents of refugees living in camps across the West Bank, and every day they are forced to be resilient as they face military raids, power cuts, water cuts, the abduction of family members, check points, the threat of settler violence, and much, much more. Palestine = Resilience 🇵🇸
For those of us who fight for equal access to healthcare for all , the Covid pandemic has been the biggest crisis of the last century. As a medical doctor I saw the challenges faced by both health professionals and patients first hand. Lives were lost due to lack for medical resources, joblessness and poverty were all at an all time high, there was a dearth of vaccines & people were struggling to protect their loved ones. The second wave was a cataclysmic situation in m country, which came with a humanitarian crisis and complete collapse of health infrastructure. there was a severe shortage of ventilators and ICU beds, and widespread deaths occurred.
I felt helpless, because I too contracted the virus along with my entire family. Even as a privileged family of doctors having resources at our disposal we were unable to mobilise a hospital bed for my grandfather and ultimately lost him due to the delay procuring life saving medication.
It was then that I founded a Covid Task Force of Every Infant Matters ( the non profit I run ) and mobilised a team of almost 200 volunteers from all walks of life. young professionals, doctors, lawyers and business people and people who came together to support and fulfil a urgent need.We provided over 33,000 people with oxygen, concentrators and cylinders, ICU beds, emergency medication, ambulance services, and whatever that was needed. Covid became an opportunity to help and give back , not just a challenge.
We then went on to provide Covid relief in all forms- food for those who had lost jobs , vaccination drives, procuring protective equipment for health workers, setting up Covid care centres in remote parts of india where there was no access to hospitals and even went on to send help to Nigeria and Kenya where the pandemic waged on. As of today the Task Force provides help to any patient who needs it, it has gone on to become a symbol of hope and strength. It made me believe that while we cannot take away diseases from this world, we can always find ways and means to help those whose are the worst effected, and that is what ultimately makes a difference.
Many years ago, I arrived in Georgia as a single mother with small children, overwhelmed by the daily challenges of starting over in a foreign country. The language barrier, the unfamiliar system, and the responsibility of motherhood—it was all so overwhelming. But through it all, I kept telling myself, keep going, keep learning.