 Hello everyone. Good afternoon. My name is Marta and I'm delighted to host this session and introduce you Soraya Bagat. We'll share with us her experience in women's right and activism and just a quick look at Soraya's biography to know her a little better. Soraya is a Finnish Egyptian consultant, a social entrepreneur and advocate for women's rights and tolerance in Egypt. She has a passion for championing causes that contribute to society and empower individuals to achieve their goals. She has particular interest in education, capacity building, employability and culture as catalysts for change in society. Soraya strongly believes in the power of individuals to stand together in the face of adversity and in the power of civil society and grassroots movements to bring about change and it was this belief that encouraged her to start tarried bodyguard of movement that she will tell us all about it and it was composed by uniform volunteers intervening to stop the brutal mob sexual assaults on women in tarry square in the wake of Egypt's 2011 revolution. The movement successfully intervened in over 100 cases and brought the country to landmark sexual harassment law in 2014. After the protests in tarry square ended, she shift her attention to other forms of violence and discrimination against women including female genital mutilation. So and between 2014 and 2019 she served as member of the strategic advisory group for the girl generation. The African led movement to end female genital mutilation in one generation. She has spoken about women's rights and issues in Egypt locally, internationally and she received several awards. She was chosen as one of the woman future leaders of the Mediterranean by Science Po University and one of the young social leaders by the Singapore summit in 2015 and 2017 and recently in 2018 she was awarded the Inspire Egypt Award in Gender Equality category by the British Embassy in Cairo following a social media vote. So Soraya will share with us what she has learned about launching grassroots movements, leadership and issues relating to gender equality. Just to remind you we will listen to Soraya for more around 45 minutes to an hour and then we'll still have one hour to questions and for sharing. So Soraya, the floor is yours. Hello. Yeah. Okay. Good morning. Thank you so much for honoring me with your presence. I'm delighted to be here with this great group. I've met some of you over the past two days and love your your energy and because of that I will speak today from the heart. I'm here to share what I learned and the title of the the talk as you might have read is Learning on the Go. I pride myself that I am an accidental activist in every single way. I come from a corporate career. I wanted to be a CEO. I was a corporate slave working not nine to five but rather nine to seven, eight, nine and never felt that you know I could get out of that little you know the hamster and the cage that's always running and that little round thing. I never felt that I could get out of it although I had that feeling that I there must be more to life. There must be something that we could do and then this happened what you see in the back and awakening on so many levels. The Harir Square in 2011 was not just a political movement. It wasn't just a revolution. It was it was a change and awakening for so many people in Egypt especially the young people who make their voices heard. But what was particular about the revolution was the role of Egyptian women. So they stood side by side next to men demanding you know bread, freedom, justice in the beginning and then the removal of President Mubarak. It's actually been said that it is because of the women that this revolution even was able to to bring about the ouster of President Mubarak after 18 days because they were just an indomitable force and this was a change for them because a lot of women prior to 2011 their activism was mainly online so they were behind the safety of their screens but in 2011 they took to the streets and they made their voices heard and left a huge impact. So that said you know it was quite something to as a woman to break so many you know barriers and and and go out and make your voice heard but unfortunately there was a dark side to this. After the revolution right after and the aftermath there were mob sexual assaults. Women were being systematically sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, ship-naked, beaten up. The first case was that came to the public attention was the case of CBS correspondent Lara Logan who after the revolution said the last night the night that Mubarak was ousted was subjected to a brutal mob sexual assault that resulted in her being in hospital in New York for five days. It was shocking because you know the revolution was very peaceful it was 18 days of hope, awakening, solidarity, a brotherhood, a sisterhood in the square and this really was was quite a big shock and unfortunately you know as somebody who was there at the time I was very appalled by the reaction not just from the press but from the people. What? How can that happen? How can a woman be stripped naked in the middle of a public square where there are millions? I didn't see it. My friend didn't see it. My other colleague didn't see it. Nobody really saw it. She's trying to get attention. She is a journalist who wants a story. She has no new angle. Mubarak stepped down. What else can she write on? That she's looking for attention. All the things that we hear about women when they come forward but imagine the trauma that she had to do this in the public spotlight and in Egypt the country where she was subjected to this brutal attack the press started you know bringing out stories about her past. She had an affair in Iraq. She did this. What did she wear? And I was also equally shocked by the reaction on the street, the reaction from friends of mine who graduated from you know international universities, whom I thought were very open-minded. The three questions. Oh my god this happened to her. What was she wearing? Number two. Oh my god who was she with and how did he not protect her? Was there a fixer? Was there a cameraman? How come how come he let this happen? And number three which is really the worst I think sometimes. Oh my god why did she go and report from Tahrir Square if she knows that this can happen to her? So that was the background that I was you know in or this was this was my environment rather during that period after 2011. I went and I think it left something in the back of my head that you know this is this is not okay and guess what? A little bit after like Lara Logan stories we heard other stories but they were suppressed by the media. They were dismissed as just you know again hearsay rumors the women trying to get attention etc. And then one year the one year anniversary of the revolution I ended up going to Tahrir Square. The same conditions as in during the revolution the square is completely packed you know sometimes when that square would be packed they were talking about one million two million two and a half million people so it's like imagine a huge concert you don't get to see everything it's packed people are pushing people are shoving. So that's exactly where what happened that day and I ended up seeing an ambulance and people rushing I didn't understand what happened I was like you know has somebody been hurt and they said no we just rescued a woman from a mob sexual assault and the only way to get her out of the square because the mob is so huge in some cases 50 men is that we need to put her in an ambulance because we cannot do it on our own and again that was just here. So I continued with my demanding day job to pay the bills and one day I heard about it I think it was on the radio or something I heard about two girls who were again subjected to the same thing no action from either the government no activist work that I was as aware of no civilian groups and the same thing happening and I think that day I decided that I've had enough somebody needs to do something about this I'm inexperienced forgot sick I'm not an activist I have a job I have bills to pay but I need to do something about this so I remember and that precise moment when that hit me that I had been driving to work every single day for an hour I worked for a real estate developer and I kept seeing as I approached my office you know all these men building the our projects wearing helmets and vests so just stuck here and you know when the stars really aligned for you that day I was thinking I got this every single thing I've ever been through in my life made sense I am going to be a bodyguard for every single woman that's going to go into the square if the police are not going to send policemen then I will if you know civilians won't do anything then I will and guess what what's the fastest easiest and cheapest uniform that I could get construction helmets and vests so there was a bodyguard and I have to say you know when you you know when you make that switch we all have ideas every single day but the difference is that there's a little switch that goes on in our minds and says okay I'm really gonna do this today I'm really today I'm really gonna do this it's not just gonna be another idea so I had like a lot of us we you know when you're like when you're getting on stage you get that stage fright I was saying okay I'm gonna get on Twitter and if the name is not available then it was just another idea you know I'll forget about it etc because it's too much what am I getting myself into and then I ended up going on Twitter the name was available and I was like oh my god now I really have to do this went to the bank we drew a thousand dollars and the rest just kept rolling got on Microsoft paint and sought okay what logo could I possibly you know create for this if it's the bodyguard so I decided you know on the outskirts of the Harir there's a very famous bridge in Cairo that has these beautiful lions and I always felt that they were protecting the square or looking at the square but they also symbolize the bravery of the men that I needed to find because hey I'm not going to be able to be the the one to Harir bodyguard I have to find all these men you know so I decided to paint it on Microsoft paint so there we had the uniform the concept more or less the social media accounts and you know uniforms again so the uniforms the social media accounts the logo the identity the idea but there I was in my office tweeting away and within an hour I think we had like over 500 followers and you know one of my funniest stories reflecting back is I wasn't even on the square yet and I was tweeting saying you know we I can't say you know I'm a woman alone in an office and asking you to join me to you know to fight for for women so I had to say that we're a group of Egyptians that have come together to fight the mob sexual assaults in Tahir please join us it started with tweeting safety tips asking people to send us you know their bios their CVs their IDs so that they can be vetted so that they can volunteer raising awareness on cases and that same day before any of the 200 uniforms that I bought with the thousand dollars were filled I had an email from CNN at 5 p.m saying hey where can we interview you where can we see you which I'm thinking about that you know was was another motivation to really start getting the ball rolling now that there was interest sorry excuse me for one second I apologize but I'm okay you are paying attention I know I just wanted to check okay yeah it was a test they're they're gonna be watch out they're gonna be a few more during this session okay so I had to to do the next big step where do I find 200 men who are willing to be volunteers get beaten up because the mob was aggressive I'll tell you about that in a second where do I find these men who are willing to take time off you know protect all these women pretend in very under very hazardous conditions possibly you know get beaten up get arrested yeah that was challenging so I kept thinking okay if things have worked well so far up to this point in less than a day I get all this done I can't give up now there must be something that I can do to get 200 men ASAP so I started looking in my black book who owes me a favor who owes me a favor who owes me a favor and then I found that that person he was a dear friend of mine who was in charge of mobilization tada and one of the political parties that was very respected back then and you know this was if you followed the news this was a very volatile period in the in the history you know of Egypt um political parties were assigning responsibilities for the square one of the responsibilities was hey we need to make sure that the demonstrators are safe so that particular party was in charge of the safety of the square so I called him up and I said meet me for a drink um on the outskirts of Tahir and his response was like what do you want because back then if you invited somebody for drink right you know a few meters from Tahir it meant you wanted something and then I got the courage and told him listen I'm gonna be I'm gonna go straight to the point I need 180 men please from your volunteers and I can't give you credit because this needs to be non-partisan but one day um you know one day I'm going to speak about this if this is successful if we manage to together save women from you know these more brutal map sexual assaults I will talk about you and I will give you the credit but right now I can't and I just need you to trust me and hey number two I have it on good you know authority that um you guys are in charge of security in Tahir and what kind of a square is it if women are systematically being you know sexually harassed assaulted stripped naked raped beaten up so let's work together and you know what you can keep the helmets and vests I just have stickers after this is all over keep them you might use them for your mobilizing activities and um we had a deal so when the uniforms finally arrived uh a day later we went with the truck to Tahir square they counted the uniform I we met the volunteers we gave them a briefing we told them what to look out for we explained to them how important this is and we were very very impressed by their level of engagement they were immediately yes we're gonna do this this is important we have to take a stand this cannot continue and then he was like hey you said 180 but there are 20 other uniforms here you know we can get you 20 men I said no actually I'll hold on to these let me try to start this organically let me try I mean I'm entering as I said I'm learning on the go I'm trying let me see if I can get some people and funny enough the first person that I met on Twitter was um this gentleman who would you know message me several times saying I like this I want to volunteer and I met him and I was like hi welcome aboard you're the director of operations now go run bring your friends and it slowly started very organically and we ended up you know taking the square by storm so the next time there was a huge demonstration at that time just to clarify to put things in context the demonstrations were usually on Tuesday or on and Friday so I had started Tahir bodyguard on the Tuesday and with all the hype I felt that you know Friday we had to be in the square because we had to use the momentum to not only you know intervene in the mob sexual assaults and save the women and girls being assaulted but also to raise awareness to take this opportunity to to bring this to the forefront and try to bring justice to some of the women who were being assaulted so it started and I was surprised because you know that first day all 200 of them in the square building a little tower a watch tower it was just a beautiful site and it was crazy that that day we got so much international media attention people wrote about this people wrote about the civilians who are taking action and what I think mattered the most to me was the fact that people were talking about the mob sexual assaults they talked again about their logon they talked about the other women who were being assaulted or were assaulted who didn't receive justice so that was that was quite something so I started this very organically you know I had no time to to write a charter I had no time to to select committees I had no time to write job descriptions I just had to go with it I think in the beginning it just started you know go out run save the women and then I started thinking well maybe I should get organized I start looking at you know how police run the units how military run the units there's all common sense and learning as you go like I had this I said well maybe there will be more effective if we divide them up in teams and each team leader you know is responsible for recruiting and training you know his team we found ways to communicate we created a hotline which is not really a very sophisticated hotline it's just somebody's number and that person will be in charge of you know disseminating the information we asked people to tweet to us and call us SMSS wherever there was an assault we started learning also to anticipate assaults so for example we did a map of the hot spots in Tahir Square you know where were we started mapping out where did the assaults happen are there areas or conditions that are more conducive to sexual assaults than others we discovered that you know that one of the problems that happened was that although there were assaults during the daytime most of these assaults happened at night because Tahir was not illuminated enough there were areas of congestion where they happened for example the entry and exit points of the metro there were parts of the square that there was a part that had a bit of an indentation it happened there so we also would station teams there so it just happened and all of a sudden I think maybe for five months later my name was leaked for the first time I didn't understand I have to admit I didn't understand what the Associated Press is I thought it was this newspaper that I never heard about so when they said we need to write your name so that to give the story more credibility and that was the priority because they wanted to say who founded the movement and there was a back and forth between me and the journalist and then he told me his editor absolutely insists on you know putting the name to add that authenticity to the story and he wanted to write about how it had you know developed so organically so I said great nobody reads Associated Press because I never heard of it anyway so I know it's ridiculous so there boom I woke up the next morning and it was on every single it was on every single news outlet which was nice because the story got the traction and the my team was also interviewed and we got to speak about this public but it also you know opened a new channel for me you know I was this committed a corporate person suddenly people are asking me you know to talk about you know women's women's rights all of a sudden they're asking me to talk about other areas of women's rights domestic violence etc so it just opened this whole new path for me and we utilized that publicity very well by also engaging other things one of the things we did was that we organized the march on women's day to stand against these mob sexual assaults we decided to this is us protecting the march we decided to in response to the sexual assaults bring more women to the square bring more women to the streets not to have women you know silenced by these assaults to fight back and then when we'd have idle moments when there were no demonstrations we also decided to do something else we decided that you know we had to also adapt to the changes around us and one of the things that we did was we started this these free self-defense workshops to teach women self-defense so we would just put them out on our platforms on our social media platforms and tell women you're invited it's free you know we need to teach you how to stand up for yourselves because as I said I entered this you know as a newbie but I wanted I felt that it's very important that we don't stay idle that as a movement we capitalize on the momentum and that we keep on innovating and adapting to the changes around us and I have to tell you a few things that I was hit with a lot of criticism at a certain point you know I've talked to you about the high so you've had that you know 50 minutes of fame you've had that success it's it's exciting it's thrilling but then you you know you hit reality I met a lot of the you know great women and men who had been working on women rights women's rights in Egypt for 20 years they weren't very you know welcoming in the beginning some of them were not very thrilled who are you you were like what you're like five months old what are you doing on the table and then I realized that I had two two choices to be upset by being snubbed and criticized or to actually develop very thick skin and you know embrace my seat on the table take it by force sit on the table and learn from them so I remember we had friction points that I had you know because of my lack of experience when it comes to women's rights activism don't even know the jargon I had said that we are a group it has to be a group of men on the ground that you know women volunteers would do the typically female stereotypical jobs which are the social media the reporting the mobile the organizing the mobilizing the fundraising you know the cute stuff whereas the people who would intervene would be men and immediately I got very criticized that how could you talk about women's rights and gender equality when you are creating a gender difference you're not emphasizing that women are equally capable like men to take to the square and and defend other women so I had to learn I had to learn it took me a while before I was able to listen and and I think that's one of the lessons that I've learned is that you it hurts when you feel that you're on the right track and you're you're getting you know the success and you're making an impact and you're you're developing a passion for some for something it hurts when you know you're told when you're sitting at the table that hey you don't get it you don't know etc so I think humility is definitely one of the things that I that I learned from this experience also another thing I remember was that I also was open to being corrected in our social media in our texts in our interviews we always talked about the victims no the people who were more experienced in the field told me we don't call them victims we call them survivors and I started you know really learning on the go and I guess if you if you don't put your ego aside you miss out on opportunity to really develop then of course I started teaching me about you know this whole discourse on women's empowerment in general what is women's empowerment some people tell you that you don't need to talk about women's empowerment because women women are already empowered they just need to find the opportunities and you know break the barriers that enable that prevent them from practicing their their power so it was quite a thrilling ride but it came to an end I got to recognized in Cairo I came to an end I got to recognize I started a movement very fast I hadn't written things down it was just you know what the first few committed people who joined were like my core team I called them the core team the executive committee I didn't have time to vet I didn't have time to design and this is something that I will come back to later in my talk because I would also like to share with you the more specifics because I also come from an HR background corporate background of how do you also manage your movement when you started I ended up losing my movement because I didn't you know have the time or the foresight to understand that even though it's like everything's going well and we're all like best friends that you know when you run a movement even if it is a volunteer-based movement you need to have structure you need to have policies you need to have something it can't just be completely organic and that's I guess one of the biggest lessons that I've learned from from this experience when I remember that one of the things I've always wanted to do when I was younger was be on CNN because I was watching CNN when I was like six years old and I was obsessed so when CNN came knocking the door really again asking if they can interview us I had a decision to make do I fulfill my dream and get on CNN and hi mom or do I use this opportunity to give the a platform to the actual people who are really doing the work the people the men who are on the square risking their jobs risking their you know their their safe well-being etc so I chose the latter I actually told them I please I don't want to be interviewed I'm very happy standing in the background and having someone else talk so we had a bit of a democratic you know they saw that I had this very relaxed democratic attitude yes I found that the movement but hey you know what for this big interview the biggest we've done please you go ahead or you guys choose someone from amongst you so that said whenever somebody one of them would say hey I'm a co-founder I was extremely relaxed because we're all best friends and we're doing something great but that backfired because there was the biggest show in the history TV history of the Middle East it was a friend of mine and actually he was he's a political satirist and he's he was one of the first people who supported me when I started this movement and had promised that he would do an episode of his widely popular show which is by the way it's like a political satire and so it was very difficult for me to understand how he could adapt an episode specifically to talk about something as horrific as the mob sexual assaults because there's nothing funny about them um but he did deliver on his promise and five months later he said hey I have a surprise for you I want to do this episode and I would love it if you know you could come on the couch together with another person from a similar movement to Tahir Bodyguard and let's talk about your work in the second half of the of the show and the first one we will laugh at the stereotypes we would laugh at the people who you know can't understand that the what you wear has nothing to do with what happens to you as a woman the people who are still placing all these burdens and stereotypes on and barriers on women so he did the episode and before filming I said that I told the team hey I have exciting news I'm gonna be on the show and I think I'm gonna invite you all and all that stuff and he's gonna honor everybody and the question was why you we're all co-founders here and didn't we vote last week for this person to be the spokesperson for the foreign media and this person to be the spokesperson for the for the local media I'm like yes but um he wanted me because you know I founded the movement hello that day when I was in the office that I just talked to you about no honey we're all co-founders here we're all co-founders here we're all equal sorry plus we don't really think that you got what it takes you're you but we don't we think that he will do a much better job and it sends a stronger message when he speaks I'm like yeah but my friend said he wants me and the message was clear you could have never done this without us which I couldn't have major fiction so I went in tears to my friend the the presenter and I said I'm having a big problem you know I can't like if I do this I'm gonna lose my movement etc and he told me listen I'm gonna make it easy for you if you're not the one sitting on my couch I'm not gonna interview anybody because you have to learn to fight back for what you've done yes that you wouldn't have been able to do it without the help of your group but you also need to assert that you started this you know sometimes we lose ourselves because again the lack of structure etc but you need to stand up for yourself so I did it I asked him to honor them to ask them to stand to get them on you know not really on stage but to get the camera to the focus on each and everyone we had a honeymoon for like maybe two weeks and when the episode aired we started having fiction we need to have elections to choose a CEO excuse me I thought that I founded the movement so I am CEO oh no it's a democracy and it just you know continued so long story short I found myself in my movement talking more about the things that I had seen as petty and small such as who the who who's the leader who's this director who's the CEO who gets to be interviewed when there are women being still systematically you know sexually harassed and raped and stripped naked and beaten up and all that stuff and going to hospitals so the situation became so impossible for me that I had to make a very very very difficult decision I had to walk away because it was either this or the the the raison d'être continuing the women and the girls and the square so I share this with you with a very heavy heart because I think it might benefit some of you to hear the other part because if you google the story you know the those stories always up to that nice part where you know we save the women and everybody lived heavily ever after and all that stuff but it's also important to acknowledge that I had to take that decision shortly before the movement ceased to be functional and I cannot describe the pain it felt like losing a child but I had to do it I had to do it a lot of my friends tell me that I should have stayed and fought back and you know changed the passwords and all that stuff but I did it I sent the email that you know guys if this is you know what's going on then I will take a step back because what's important is that we focus or you focus on the work that we need or you need to do we need to do this we need to fight back within a minute of that email the passwords were changed for everything all the twitter account that I started in the office that day the gmail the facebook I lost my movement horrific especially you know how with how much the movement was appreciated by you know civil society the press I was still receiving requests to speak and suddenly it felt like you're you know you've you've lost something huge you've lost yourself you've lost lost your heart I had to to really grieve and this was a very difficult period but I decided that I once the grief is over that I have to be strong I felt that you know we all have to know that we are bigger than anything we create no matter how big it is it's not about the recognition it's not about the attention so then starts the second part of my journey of the story once I once I made the decision that I was going to survive and that what mattered was the awakening that happened inside me as a person that I wanted to continue fighting for women's rights I was able to really move on so I've learned four things from my experience number one please don't be you know a prisoner of your success of your PV success because I can't imagine everywhere I went for maybe two months afterwards so what's the exciting new project there must be another sexy idea that you have ah so how are you going to top this one I hard as I tried I couldn't find the inspiration really I couldn't find inspiration it's very hard how do I top this one this was successful this was you know it happened you know on the my first go that I was lucky people you know try for excuse me people try for like you know several times before they hit something that goes very viral and successful and you know gets you international media recognition and an international network how do you top that and you know what I realized that I wasn't able to come up with an idea because of that pressure because every time I went I would get that question and when I'd go home and think of what am I going to do next because the activism bug had hit me I'd find myself unable to think of a sexier idea so you know what I did I decided to serve which is lesson number two if you find an opportunity to serve that's what I learned if you find an opportunity to serve and you're able to by all means go it's not about you it's not always about you so I decided to to apply somebody told me hey listen you know it's not your area but there is this new project it's an African led movement to end FGM in one generation and they were looking for non-compensated you know board member strategic advisory group member to work on this would you apply and guess what I applied and I learned it opened a whole new door I wasn't working on FGM at all I learned that one in five women around the world who's been who's been cut is from my country Egypt there's a lot to be done I'm just not gonna get the attention and the press that I had you know gotten but who cares I can serve and it opens so many doors for me and here I am after my grieving period giving a lecture and facilitating a workshop for 14 new people that we trained young people that we trained to go to their communities and try to combat this just to put the problem in perspective you know what the percentage of cut women is in Egypt I'm gonna give you exactly the I'm gonna give you for the age group from between 14 and 17 it had it has gone down from 72 percent to 68 percent which is a hell lot of you know and it's a big number Egypt is a hundred million people it's a huge number um so this door opened when I decided to put the ego in check and just focus on what matters the activism for women and I was able to to travel you know here I'm in Kenya to travel to other communities in Africa and learn from them how they ended FGM and it was very interesting because it was another journey of learning on the go if you will I learned again that why were the many campaigns that were done over the past few decades in Egypt not successful is because the rhetoric did not work with the people because you know FGM is a very horrific thing so if you're doing an ad or a campaign people cringe because most of the campaigns would be this on tv would be this stereotypical scene of a father bringing the midwife and the daughter is crying and you know she's she's locked in a room and then the father has a change of heart or his conscience awakes and he storms in and runs breaks the door and carries the girl in his arm it didn't work so instead what we tried to do was to change the narrative it was like instead of like you know putting the knife out there in the video or reminding people how horrific it is well why don't we remind them of the potential of the uncut girl why don't we emphasize the idea that girls are beautiful and wonderful and have so much potential and their source of joy and they're empowered the way they are and they complete the way they were born so why don't we celebrate their potential why don't we focus instead of like focus focusing on cutting them why don't we focus on how we can help them recognize their potential develop them further how can we you know work on programming that enables them to become whatever they want to become and break the you know taboos and barriers so that that opened a whole new journey for me and I found peace when I was able to be part of this this this journey and forget the trauma that I felt by losing my movement and then something else happened I decided to talk about my failure which because I had been at that point I had you know been invited all over the world to talk about our story people liked it it resonated with them but I decided that you know there was a part two that also needs to be told it's a lesson that people need to learn so I've traveled around the world to also talk about what can you learn from from from setbacks so number three is teamwork teamwork teamwork it's so nice to be part of a team um two years ago I I entered the team with you and women a team of advocates and jointly we've started a lot of campaigns there is when they sell you strengths and numbers it's not just you know this this thing that they say it's so nice to not just be you know focused on yourself and what you get out of your activism but also how you can complement the activism of others so we are part of this group that's the you and women Arab states Agora where we try to support each other and push each other forward which leads me to lesson number four which is when they say that strong women support each other and empower each other that is so true I've learned that if I have any opportunity to support the project of another woman that could be even more successful than Tahrir bodyguard then I should definitely go for it and in fact I'm sitting here because another woman recommended me Julianne who is part of the reshape network recommended me because we had met at a at another event so it's by you can't just be an advocate for women and focus on yourself if you're a true advocate for women then you also focus on giving other women opportunities support in celebrating their achievements because when we celebrate the achievements of one woman we're celebrating the achievements of many others so yeah I think we're about to wrap up and just say that it's been a ride I'm still learning when I left my movement I thought that was it for me I'm so glad that I didn't give up and if there's one thing I would like you to remember from my talk today is that Tahrir bodyguard wasn't even my best idea the only difference is it's the only day I decided to really act on an idea so if any of you have ideas which I'm sure are like brilliant and we we all get hundreds of ideas every day I beg you to please just follow your idea with all your heart and conviction and I promise you the whole world will follow follow back just remember me sitting there in an office completely alone without anything the only things that I really wanted to do this and I believed in it and in the end I will leave you the HR woman and me will leave you with this chart that I designed for how to start you know your your organization so if you have an organization it's so important to map out the the the organization and have like you know an org chart to understand who does what and I can send it to you guys if you like in high res and I can leave you my email as well if anybody has any questions on HR for NGOs or for movements I will be very happy to support you with some pro bono consultancy so you know starting with mapping your organization you know and then when you do that you get a detailed org chart you need to know who does what today tomorrow and after so you ideally map an an organization chart for now for where you think your movement will be when it grows in a year and also your ultimate five years and why does this help you it's not just about dividing up makes you help the think how you divide the labor or the tasks etc no it also helps you understand where you're going to promote you when you're going to promote your your your team members and how it gives room for example some people like in I see this mostly in startups or in like very new NGOs they'll give somebody chief marketing officer okay where does he go from here you start with manager then director then you know VP you start you have to give yourself room and the second thing is having your policies you know your company organization policies are very important just writing them out I know it's tedious but in the long run it helps you so much and then having writing your job descriptions writing who does what what is the profile of the person what are the responsibilities what do they do and then comes the important part of the you know objective setting setting objectives for people so that you can manage performance then you have to do also evaluating jobs evaluating titles you have to do this periodically and it's a very good opportunity to do that when you are working on objective setting and performance reviews etc and then a compensation review how much are you paying compared to the market and are you incentivizing people enough some people like to have just salaries others like to have salaries and performance based bonuses and then finally the last step is designing your competency model what kind of people do you want to have in your organizations and how do you want to develop them because a competency model that emphasizes for example you know teamwork or creative thinking will help you as an organization to move forward and to also focus if your training employees or you know colleagues then which trainings do you choose for them if you have so that's like if you can imagine like a yardstick or a ruler that's it that's your competency model and finally you're ready to to operate so thank you very much for being here today I loved speaking so openly with you I hope that some of what I've said might be useful and again if you want to reach out to me to ask me about anything related to or you know organization charts and setting up companies or or NGOs I'd be more than delighted to help you thank you so much thank you Soraya thank you for sharing with us such an inspiring experience and for being so honest about the success and the failures of your experience I guess there will be a lot of questions but I will start with one from my own how do you do you think this you conciliate your two worlds as a next divist for gender equality and as your work at the corporate level how this influence one influences the other how your concerns your positions about gender equality also influences your choices and your attitudes in the corporate level well I'll start with how the corporate career influences the the advocacy and activism which is what I mentioned is that you know in a corporate career you have more rigidity you have models like this etc so I think that you know in light of also what I experience with my own movement I have become convinced that some sort you know professionalization of you know your movement is of vital importance it saves you many headaches so that's how that influences that perhaps also the corporate career has helped me by giving me access to some corporations that could fund me or some understanding of how you know corporate social responsibility departments and managers think you know what to how do they choose to fund this project versus that project what kind of reporting requirements do they want when they fund you for example so that was that was very interesting it also taught me about the barriers that women face until today you know we're closer 2020 and still all over the world we have you know barriers in corporate life and I might address that later but I think what's what's interesting about reconciling both words is that I've learned that you can be a champion for women wherever you are even in the most rigid corporate structures so I decided to in my company to be that champion for women to continue my advocacy I can just you know be here and talking about wanting to to help bridge the gender gap and fighting for women's rights and not myself adapt this in my day job so for example I'm we were one of the first people to ever have I know this sounds ridiculous but we don't have a paternity leave in Egypt and I felt that you know one of the things that we can do to emphasize gender equality is not necessarily by always doing policies that are centered on women well why don't we do it the other way too why don't we emphasize the fact that well men have a responsibility towards their children as well so we we we started this thing where you know what congratulations on the baby go home for one week help your wife or your partner and that's it don't go sit in a cafe you know you're staying home and you're changing diapers and that was our way to emphasize this gender equality there are other policies of course you know such as daycare starting a daycare to enable women to come back to work extended leaves a flexible working hours for women also another very important thing which is and not many companies still do this and it's very important to to emphasize this is the cost that women pay compared to men when they're out of the workforce to raise their children you know you come back after four years or three years your colleagues have been have been promoted and there is no room for you so it's important also as companies to ensure that you keep you keep you know your you keep track of your employees who are on maternity leave and that you consider their career path and what they're going to do next so yeah you can be a champion for women everywhere thank you so now it's your turn do you have any questions or sharing thank you Soraya for sharing all this with us I really admire what you do and as well as your honesty in sharing with us both sides and because you were honest I'll ask also an honest question and I hope I don't it's it's not a negative criticism it's a true honest question of course we learn on the go all of us learn on the go but I think you didn't mention I don't know how old you were in 2011 I was oh my god I have to do some math now and I'm very bad at math I mean were you 27 27 the thing you didn't mention is that perhaps when we start something one of the steps also is to go to see who's already doing something about it and try to learn from these people before we get into the field I'm not saying they are an authority because many times people I believe that people who have worked for a very long time in a field somehow they can get trapped as well but nevertheless they do give us some basis to start on and then we can do differently even thank you so much for bringing this up because you give me the opportunity to clarify a little bit more I agree with you totally I as a person I think that we should not you know reinvent try to reinvent the wheel when there are already people working just to clarify Tahrir bodyguard started because I had no choice but to start it because there was no one else doing this same thing that's why if I can clarify a little bit about the model that we did that's why I didn't get into the other areas where people were working so for example there were people there were there were organizations that were terrific that specialized in the trauma so I had a division of labor because I understood that there are others out there who specialize in counseling for survivors of sexual assault who specialize in you know trying to prosecute cases or bring forward you know the perpetrators to justice that I didn't enter that part I entered the part that was very vacant where no one else know before we started Tahrir bodyguard no one was doing anything to save the women because it was too dangerous and I had to repeatedly tell my team you end your job ends when you hand her over to the ambulance others will take it from there so I hope this clarified but I definitely agreed that we shouldn't duplicate because it's a waste of energy and we should try to capitalize on synergies to be more effective and that's why in my advocacy I try to either support existing organizations and you know partner with them or start something new like for example when I went into the area of FGM there's so many people working on FGM but what was nice about the you know being with the girl generation and being responsible for Egypt was that it was a communications platform it was an organization that tells other organizations come join us we will give you training we will give you a platform and so thank you so much for raising this issue because I think I might have not clarified it enough thank you so much hi thank you so much for this presentation and I also enjoyed a lot your your honesty about actually your personal story about how you went from from the first experience to the others I find fascinating the end actually because I did not expect the the conclusion somehow I feel that your story at one point was leading to a very different kind of conclusion in the sense that it gave me the feeling that you kind of reached the the conclusion for yourself that a movement needs a different type of coordination and facilitation in order to be for you to feel included while actually at the end you you seem to find yourself in a position where you you put the lens of corporate managerialism over the movement which personally I find a bit strange and I'm saying this uh comparing to my own work I'm a researcher in cultural management and I'm working now actually on this guide about local networks and in doing that at European level for European institution but at local level and in doing that I've taken both perspectives one is about social anarchy and what we can learn from social anarchy principles on how to facilitate and coordinate a movement a local network a type of organizational creature which is different to the way we are used to run our daily lives you know we are organizations versus the perspective of managerialism which is exactly somehow what you are proposing which is more on a new public management stakeholder theory which actually comes from the profit sector which very which much more rigid lines which are different type of management competence and my own conclusion is that this type of of structure does not actually work for the type of organizational creature which is which is represented by a local network and I do not have experience with movements as as you called it but somehow I would my instinct would be that this type of reasoning and this type of formalization of a management of a movement again is is is ossifying a type of fluidity of communication and organization which comes from which has a drive in a different type of energy and I would I mean it's just my comment on on your presentation because actually up to the end I felt that you would reach this conclusion that you know personally I felt that I need to let go I attached myself too much to this movement that movement has a life of its own and I'm going to another story to be involved in but you actually reach the conclusion that you need more corporate more corporate frames in order for it to work so maybe you can comment a bit on that because I'm sure I would or I would suspect that you also had this these dilemmas during these years and how did you come to to think that this is actually the solution and not the social honor key governance type of answer I don't know if I made myself clear but you know yes I actually I got it and I appreciate your your comment very much because it's definitely an interesting you know dilemma that I still have just to clarify I don't propose this as the solution for every every movement I think when I look back now I should have had a hybrid I should have had something in between where I had been more assertive also as a as a leader and let me ask you a question here quick survey how many of you think I should have left and how many think I should have stayed and fought just out of curiosity how many think I should have stayed should I left right they do the right thing by leaving I think it depends it's not black or white it depends what what was maybe at that time it wasn't really clear for you but what do you wanted from that movement was it the impact was it you leading on something and it's human I'm not criticizing all of us that have this leader somewhere and the different leadership some want to be in the front other leaders for example I give you an example when you talk about Microsoft you know there is a face that is Bill Gates but nobody knows who's the leader who had IBM that's different leadership so you know and some movement yeah at different leadership nobody knows the guy behind it because he doesn't care but maybe for him the impact is how much money he gets in his pocket so the how the movement should be shaped how it should be used there is not a preset recipe it's what is meant behind it what's the life and the development that you want to see through that and based on what you want it to be then you could choose the best management between brackets a structure for it I agree I don't think that there's one set formula but what I personally learned from my experience was that I needed to have a little bit more structure so I think ideally for me it will be something between where I come from the corporate world and the very loose thing that I had I mean I had I had nothing I mean I really I had nothing on paper I had my accounts taken from me like this in one minute I had nothing I had no claim to anything so I think that it's a dilemma that I still have thank you very much I wish I could give you like a more you know a sort of answer but the the answer that I have is that I'm still learning I haven't found it a movement since then or a company I have an idea I'm starting one very slowly but I'm starting it very carefully and I'm making sure that I at least put in you know a part of a structure that will prevent you know what happened to me that I can learn from my mistake and one thing I'd like to add to you also is you know there are structures there are processes there are policies but also more important is the term culture you know what kind of a culture do you actually build in a company and the culture that I have always believed in is a culture of participation of teamwork and finding you know that balance between the necessary regulations but also the kind of environment where you thrive and you feel that you know you have ownership I just wanted to add to this because this is a very good question and I know well myself I went through it and I know colleagues who set up things and then they had to go through that decision what do I do I stay or I leave and I think the model the the model is more than one exactly and it depends a bit on the context of each one the kind of person you are the mission of the structure you created but you didn't create a formal structure nothing was and I think you did the right thing and I believe also you did the right thing if you felt also that you didn't have support in that group if if they were really eager in saying we are co-founders all of us and there were not some people in that group saying yeah but she did it and we'll go after we'll support her it was a 50-50 and you know the famous story so no it was 50-50 and the problem is what you remember that famous story I don't remember who it was but when I think it was King King Solomon when there was a child and two mothers were fighting over the child and one said you know we'll cut the child in two and the other one said no well you know what I didn't want in fighting it's very simple it was again about the mission it was about the cause and that's what mattered to me more so I was happier to let go but it's I think it's maybe important that I add that it was 50-50 because that puts you know the dilemma more into perspective because in my case it was 7 to 70 and then I had no doubt what I would do that I would keep to the thing we had what did you do sorry we stayed and fight but we were many there were just very few that were upset about the visibility I was getting for being the person who would be more visible that's it visibility visible but then yeah there were it depends very much on the context I don't think there is a recipe here although we've been discussing recipes there's no recipe I'm actually personally very glad to hear this because you're having gone through that it's always nice to hear that someone else also had the same issue and fought back the use of vocabulary when you talk for you bring the the corporate rigidity I know NGOs that are much more rigid than the corporate I've been I worked in both sides and I NGOs NGOs EU whatever and I can't tell you some and NGOs and international as I have the same exact process in here so it's rigidity not it's not necessary from the private sector and the fluidity and transparency is not necessarily coming from an NGO word so thank you very much I just want to add about this discussion that maybe it's also about the context and for me for example it is really inspiring because my context the same from Poland and in Poland activism is really let's say grounded and connected with this anarchy philosophy it's for me it's quite inspiring because in many activist movement and also NGOs in our country the philosophy of participation and to resist of this corporation models are so strong that when they are starting to grow and to be more visible the problems with organizations starts to be really really big and many of movements struggling problems and inner let's say troubles with communication etc and starts to be not effective and this value of effectiveness although we don't like this word because it's connected with neoliberal and capitalistic world it's in my opinion really important about activism because it's about goals and about being yeah doing your things yeah and what was inspiring in your in your speech for me was that we did this this aspect of humility that we can learn something from other other sectors even if we don't share our values for example with us as we are activists and artists we can maybe take something which is connected with the management knowledge for example and nowadays I just want to add that nowadays in Poland we have quite interesting discussions about what we can take from people who are really effective because they are working in business for example although and give them for example our values of treating people or anti-cap maybe not not anti-capitalistic issue attitude because it's not about business to be anti-capitalistic but saving our our attitude to creating world taking something from this organizational position knowledge so for me it was really honest you to say that you are from this world and you were grounded in that and for my my context it is inspiration because our natural for me these dilemmas you mentioned were so natural and these are my first reaction that okay it's it's it's not this this this world but still we can I think we can take something from that so it is really inspiring thank you thank you very much for your kind comment thank you so much thank you again for this great talk and I'm from Lebanon so I do get the context very well I have also been through something similar and I did stay in fight and I did win and I don't but it's still didn't satisfy me even afterwards because and I completely understand the context and I'm right now actually a friend of mine who started a movement which is actually the bay pride is going through the same thing so I'm trying to advise my friend and I when he first came to me saying that he's going to do it I said be prepared because shit's gonna go down and I'm wondering because I also get the whole learning from the corporations I think that's also very contextual for us coming from the Middle East not having state that has not having state support so always feeling like you need to have your own initiatives and be more entrepreneurial and go out there and do things and now I live for the last two years in Athens so I'm a little bit more in the European context and I can't help but think is it really about creating a system where you can control these things so that would be like a system that you suggested where you can control things instead of so that you so that they don't go wrong or is it more about choosing the people that you work with so that you don't necessarily need to have such a controlling system because after all this time you've learned a little bit more about what kind of people you get along with and if you're on the same values if you have the same principles and therefore these are the things maybe that you would count on for that not to happen again definitely option number two definitely option number two first yeah it's about the people and again I'm glad that you understand the context because I started the movement and in 24 hours or less you know I I think one of my mistakes is that I didn't vet enough the people I didn't design you know the organization better I didn't think of who would do what and I instead of bringing all these people and telling them your own executive committee you know I had more people than than jobs available so I would definitely go first with the choosing the the right fit the people that you can absolutely rely on that you can work with in harmony and it's not about controlling it's about empowering and investing in so yeah and thank you so much for bringing this question because I felt that I wanted to add that thank you what can you introduce yourself please Maria I live and work in Portugal I'm Greek so we mix everything here in a big pot you know even if you choose the best people and the people that you think that in a certain moment you think the same way it might not happen like this so what we tried to do in our case because it's the human nature and when things start happening somebody will be upset because somebody usually the person who works the most gets more visibility it's human nature so you cannot control everything and everything can get out of your out of hand but there are some things we know that they are being repeated and for instance in our association statutes we try keeping a very non hierarchical every the power was always shared so there's there's nobody even today there's nobody higher than anybody else but we did try to keep clear what everybody was doing in that structure so just to try to minimize the the effect of human nature taking over that's it thank you for sharing that I did not plan on doing this but because I'm working on this topic now I think that there are some things that research has already said that are working if you want to keep alive a local network or a movement and I'm just gonna enumerate some of the things because I've been working on this for one year so there are some some types of governance structures that work better than others and I'm not gonna go into this it's gonna be no launch next year clustering into subnetworks actually works so actually if you have a large movement clustering into subnetworks which are based on C or on role or on function actually helps the the network work so called reciprocity norms meaning that among the people who are part of the of the of the thing there should be an agreement on what each of us can do to the other one so this is called reciprocity norms which need to be agreed in the first place simple channels of communication this is I mean I think it's quite intuitive a certain type of identity so knowing what your values are what your what your goal is celebration of success so occasions in which we we the people who are part of this are able to celebrate successes so when something good is happening a certain type of management competences so democratic management is something different than the management of a project or of an organization and usually these are skills which are not taught in university so how to be a good facilitator how to be a bridge or how to be a connector this is not something that is usually taught in management school also the feeling of a network what it actually means to feel that we are together this can be nurtured nurtured through certain things and last but not least the occasion for people to take charge so occasions in which people can say I want to do this I want to do the other thing so these are things not invented by me these are things which are resulted from reading literature review doing literature review of academic journals and taking interviews with people who have been involved in this these are just a couple of things I just put them down here but what I'm trying to say is that even if we look at this from I mean the lens of managerialism is can function to some degree but these are actually things which are part of a more in my point of view at least and from what I read these are more adapted to the way a network works and I know you you called it a movement I'm sure there are differences between the networks and I know there are but these are I mean to put it simply these are different types of organizational creatures as someone called it in a meeting then we are used to talk about and it's a real challenge how to how to work with them what I try for myself and I want to see in others as well is is a challenge to actually do not use I don't have anything about against corporate the corporate word per se but what I really think is that we should be careful to apply the lens of managerialism to organizational creatures which are not corporate corporations and that's all I'm sorry for taking the time but I just felt that this is a good input for no but this was very interesting no this was very interesting and again I think this you know has been already said here that the context matters the individual type of organization matters individual culture matters and one's personal experience we're all different you know it's we talked about human nature thank you for bringing that up and we're all different I think that you know the conclusion that I personally had you know received for how I would do it again because there's an also the psychological aspect you know if you look at my story how am I going to trust people without some form of structure again how can I invest again you know somebody was once telling me when I was talking about the bodyguard and it was like I was gone for like I think it still you know I say I get to your eye the bit when I talk about it about leaving you know I had left three months by that time it was like three months that I had left and I was talking to somebody and I had tears in my eyes and I just said I'm really sorry I feel so silly you know it's and the person you know had studied psychology and told me no don't be sorry it's like a miscarriage it is painful when you walk away so I think the the psychological aspect perhaps might be more you know that might be clouding my judgment or affecting me very much that to be able to put that energy again to dare to start again and put my all because I didn't really sleep can you imagine like when I was growing this movement I didn't really sleep it was my everything it was me it was everything so for me to be able to trust again and invest again I will need to find that balance between the beauty of the organic and flexible with the structure oh um they fought and split it into two oh they continued fighting oh really this is human nature human nature is really fantastic so sometimes I advise people you know what just step away and watch it unfold no they fought they fought over when you see when the legitimate and this is also from political science you know when they talk about leadership and legitimacy when the legitimate person who created the movement has has gone they had a honeymoon period where everybody's very happy hey the what was it ding dong the witch is dead from the Wizard of Oz so then the human nature kicks in and people leaders who are not legitimate leaders because who really created the movement when I'm gone none of them they started fighting with each other and split into two camps and then the protestant ended and I think it was a matter of months I mean it I left and that baby was gone after three months it was down the drain sad sad but you know I makes me even more glad that I had left one I did because I tried my all I gave it my all to save it I tried my best to save it by walking away and I couldn't compete with you know the human nature thank you for your story and I was just thinking that maybe because the objective of the movement was innovate temporary so you either find a new call or so that may I'm just imagining now so that most of may have been at the moment of reorganizing was and restructuring the movement itself I think I think you did the right decision so I'm happy you did thank you so much thank you so much and it was temporary and maybe this is off topic but I don't really see the tension between the corporate structures and our own little chaos is what you said I think it very much reminds me of management tools innovate and also what I learned from from organizational development that now the corporate world is also adopting some more some softer structures and softer skills like agile organizations so they also do talk about that that's what I know and I also think that our field and I'm studying that really needs a bit of a professionalization and what you said there is just sensible planning it's I think very often we just get together with our friends because we have a goal and we never think how we are going to work together and how we are going to deal with conflict and if that is structured a little bit I think it helps you on on the long run so I I don't think it's it makes it rigid it just makes it more transparent and make sure that you are not going to fall out with your friends in a year's time thank you for bringing that up you know when they say the famous saying do you know this person yes I do have you worked with him then you don't know him when I entered in this room I was wondering how many men would be in your lecture and in France after the me too movement we had a lot of we have actually a lot of debates about all these things then how do you call les abus sexuel how do you sexual harassment yeah a woman and then I have a friend a male friend he he wrote something very interesting about I know that you speak French not maybe you could help me the missing words of them because he said that when he talks with all his female friends it's about two on three that lived some sexual abuse and then um when he talks to his male friends anybody did and when he said anybody did that uh you know non uh male done did that and then um the the numbers are showing that uh a lot of time the abuses are uh in the next in the really uh thank you circle so um uh so he wrote a very very clever text about uh the fact that we need to listen men too on these things and that the the of course we have to fight for the the the rights and all what you said but uh men have also their uh part of the of the fight and of the about uh say telling things and recognize I agree with you totally that's why I'm a big fan of campaigns such as you know he for she and campaigns that emphasize you know women's rights as not just a women's issue but it is a human rights issue everybody should be protected from sexual assault where there are whether there are a woman or a man it doesn't matter it's about you know um emphasizing that everybody needs to be safe gender equality is important when that equality is achieved everybody wins corporations even um even win so sometimes I feel that there's always a focus on women and maybe that's why I'd mentioned earlier that um when I started um seeing myself as a champion for women in my workforce I also wanted to emphasize the role of men so that's why I wanted to give them paternity leave to emphasize that they also have a role because I'll give you an example in Egypt there's a progress when it comes to women's rights because suddenly we have uh a big number of uh of female ministers unprecedented in the government like you know we had and just to give you a bit of a snapshot in 2012 we had nine women in parliament today we have close to 90 we've had I think about eight ministers female female ministers if I'm not mistaken so it's a huge leap forward but guess what when some of these ministers were sworn in people were asking oh my god how is she going to be you know able to be a good minister and a good mother whereas when men are sworn in nobody asks you know what kind of a father he is so I think that this whole idea of fighting for women's rights agenda equality also needs to take into consideration as you so rightly say the role that men play and their responsibility aware as well so thank you for bringing that the attention my question the man in the room one of not directly in response to that I want to take the position of a father actually in in this conversation and uh you know first of all and once more thank you for the presentation but also for all of the extraordinary work that you've done the question I have it or the the observation I want to make is that there was a that was a way of making more female survivors I would say the action the activism that you took and I it but what it what what my question is and having a 12 year old daughter is what's changing the male mentality that allowed that to happen in the first place and I and I wanted to address that kind of the male voice in it in that for me I have a daughter and a son and my daughter I work as hard as I can to empower her to be able to do things like say no and you know to be able to be strong within a situation of a male dominated society with my son I think that is the more important work which is to teach him respect so that that counters any action that he may come across growing up where male actions result in things like female abuse and the likes and I don't know that there's something around that action and the responsibility of men and their sons in order to have the next generation coming up different wow well thank you very much for your kind words um I think it's two things it's you know from my experience in Egypt it's two things it's number one mindset number two accountability and both really affect each other one of the issues that you know faced women in Egypt was the enforceability of laws first of all you know before 2014 there was no real sexual harassment law there was you know the rape law in the traditional definition of rape so if you had been subjected to sexual abuse if you had been one of the people who was in Tahrir you couldn't really get justice and how do you get justice from you know 50 men it's very hard to arrest somebody um in that period another thing maybe to put it in context I've spoken about you know FGM the first time someone in Egypt said this is not okay we need to fight was in the 1930s late 20s 30s okay so it's been almost 100 years since the first doctor said this is not okay we have to fight it this was criminalized I think 2007 2008 the first case that was brought to prosecution in Egypt was in 2013 okay and it was because the girl died so you have also an issue that you know it's not it's about changing mindsets but also about enforceability and enforceability changes mindsets and changed mindsets support enforceability some of the the work that has been done was to also emphasize this area that you're talking about that you know as a man you are much more of a man when you empower your woman and your daughter and your mother and and there was a beautiful campaign which in Arabic is titled Ashen Anarokil and it was like because I'm a man I help her in the house so that she can you know go on and get her graduate degree because I'm a man I take my daughter to soccer practice because that's what she loves to do and because of a man I you know stand up for for women's rights so I think it's both together and we've seen over the past five years in Egypt real change because of you know these campaigns and also because the enforceability you know there are stories of women who are and men who are refusing to let it go because you know you have to imagine that I'm I was sexually harassed in Egypt several times it's something you just grow up with really like you know going to university that's just part of the norm you know some people get upset in Egypt when we say that 90 something percent of Egyptian women are subjected to harassment I don't know friends who have not been subjected to sexual harassment in Egypt I don't know a single one who can tell me that she has not been touched by a man unwantedly you know it's it's everything it's even the verbal sexual harassment oh you look hot so what we've had over the past five years is because of what happened in Tahrir at Roma that people started saying that hey any form of sexual harassment is not okay we need to end this it's exactly you know when you have like this dog that you know is a little bit aggressive and you have a Mona leash it's a cute dog but that's harmless doesn't really do anything it barks here and there and one day that dog broke away from the leash and bit someone and killed them that's exactly what happened in Tahrir the shock of the mob sexual assaults was that it was that brutal but hey women were being sexually harassed every day on the street you know we hear the most horrible like very sexually explicit stuff so I think it started you know with understanding that this needs to end and none of this is okay and that's why the 2014 law was a landmark because it started you know even phone sexual harassment has become criminalized so that's a way to really enforce it by changing the mindset by telling people that it is really not okay and not just that it is punishable it's a crime so yeah as I said both so we are reaching the end of the session uh any last question no I'm just putting a last question just to relate with reshaped project based in your experience what is the role of heart in this situation the role of art is extremely important you know it's um first of all art shapes perceptions it changes you know it's one of the things that builds bridges between people subconsciously you know it changes minds it's something it's more powerful than than any other medium in the Arab world the visual arts are very very important you know they call Cairo the the the Hollywood of the of the east because people consume so much TV TV series so if we start with ensuring that film and TV productions you know theater productions paintings of women you know emphasize gender equality then we're reaching people faster than anything else because according to statistics that's the one that's that's what people consume the most so it's important to also reversely celebrate the great female artists we have not just in the Arab world but also all over the world and put them forward and it was so inspiring for me to see that there are these groups that are talking about the importance of highlighting female directors you know because we always hear that you know when you look at the Oscars for example you see that most people that there are very few women are winning in the categories of actual filmmaking the technical categories so it's important to bring that to the conversation also important in the art field to talk about equal pay you know some it has come out after the Sony leaks that so many female actresses were and female directors were making less just because they are women so I think it's a it's a very strong relationship between art and and activism for women and I have to say it's my favorite medium to bring about change and one of the campaigns that I talked about previously the one because of a man was very successful because it was a cartoon it was a drawn campaign it really appealed to people so very effective method of change thank you Soraya it was a pleasure to meet you thank you so much for having me and thank you all for joining I enjoyed your insights very much I love this discussion and I love that it was like a two-way discussion and I look forward to seeing you all again sometime and we will be here for the rest of the week so maybe you can continue this conversation after thank you and just to remind to remind you the next session is here and it's okay in at five yes we talk sana team of fever fever okay thank you