Change Her Story, Change the World: Turning Pain Into Purpose - with Taban Shoresh

Speaker A: Those soldiers came to our door. I was taken to prison with my grandparents and my mother. We were meant to be buried alive. Women are used as a weapon of war. It's the easiest way to target and dismantle the other side. I arrived in the UK as a refugee at the age of six. To have all those major, major traumatic life changes in a short space of time for a child was unbelievable to. I'd hear international organizations talking about planning their exit strategies, and I'm there going, what do you mean, exit strategy? These women and girls need protection. They need services. Sometimes you have leaders in the room that have all the titles and have everything around them, but actually they haven't got a clue.

Speaker B: Protection leadership means ensuring that the safety, the dignity and the rights of the people affected by humanitarian crisis. Means guide every decision we make. Humanitarian leaders in field operations need to work together to advocate and to keep attention firmly on those most at risk. Protection is everybody's business. Welcome, everybody, to the Protection Leadership Podcast. I'm, um, Panus Vomsees and I'm, um, the host to this, uh, podcast. Today, I'm delighted to have with me an extraordinary guest, a guest who has a very personal story to share with us, a story that is really about how to turn a pain, a difficult moment, a difficult experience, into a positive energy, into an experience where really becomes an advocacy and helps so many other people that are there. Today's conversation, I have to warn you, is personal, is personal for my guests, but it's also personal for me, as you're going to discover as we're going forward. So it's my pleasure to introduce, uh, Toban Shoresh, who is a former Iraqi refugee, a woman rights activist, the founder of the Lotus Flower, and the recipient of the UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award. Congratulations and really welcome to the program.

Speaker A: Thank you so much. I hope I can do it without crying.

Speaker B: So Thaban's life story has spanned really from displacement to survival to an extraordinary resilience, really a strength to be able to continue the path. But what makes her voice really particularly powerful is not only what she has endured, but more importantly, how you really transform the lives, not just for yourself, but for the people of the project that, uh, you're working, working with displaced women, with girls affected by violence, by conflict, by inequality, and reminding everybody that protection is not really about policies, not about papers, but about concrete action that touches the lives and the hearts of the people that you're working with. So I will be exploring on this episode the journey and hearing more about you Thaban, I want to ask you, when you look at yourself, you're a former refugee, you are an activist, you're a woman leader, you are a Nansen Award laureate. You have received an OBE also, uh, from the uk. So which identity feels more true today? From what I've described, I think it

Speaker A: goes with different times and moments of your life and how you feel connected to certain titles. For me, all of them connect. But right now, I would say a leader. It's taken a long time to get here to feel like a leader. But actually, if I look back in my life, we're all leaders of our own life in some way, shape or form. And the reason why I say a leader now is I actually feel like I've got to a point where I've managed to turn my experiences to be able to lead, to support other women and girls. And that, for me is really important. And then with that, uh, came being an activist, naturally, and accidentally, actually. So from a lived experience. And the added lovely bonus is the recent Nansen Award. So if it's possible to take all, I will take all.

Speaker B: And is refugee still part of the identity, or has it evolved over time?

Speaker A: You know, I arrived in the UK as a refugee at the age of six, and I remember it very, very clearly. And that always stays with you. It's not something that you become and turns off. Yes, you might get status and you might be a former refugee, but that doesn't take away your memories, your experiences, your feelings, your understanding, your compassion. So you're always a refugee at heart. And for. Well, I'm Kurdish, so for Kurds, we have the element of being the largest ethnic group without a nation state. So we've always kind of felt stateless in that way. But to actually be a refugee when we came to the uk, that stays with you. It's not something that you just turn off. And it's a title. I actually think it's a feeling.

Speaker B: It's a feeling, yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, it's a feeling, yeah.

Speaker B: So, Thaban, I would like to take you back to your childhood and kind of the experience as a young girl, being with your parents and being in a context where, from one day to another, from a young age, you became a refugee. Can you kind of walk us through what was this experience for you?

Speaker A: I think the experience was very difficult. You know, in a very short space of time, you have major experiences that happen to you. For example, at the age of four, I was taken to prison with my grandparents and my mother. And then we were meant to be Buried alive. And, you know, having escaped that I, uh, didn't recognize what that meant at the time. But I could feel all the dangers throughout the whole process, I could feel all the dangers. And from fleeing, you know, 12 months of fleeing, we saw lots of things that we shouldn't have seen. And that was a very separate experience of being in prison. And so there's two major experiences there already. So I remember in Iran, my dad was poisoned, and we saw him for one night before he was rescued. And so I remember that moment that he was brought in. And then suddenly you were on a plane, something that you've never been on. And, you know, I remember when we got on the plane, we didn't want to sit down because we were scared that if we sat down, the plane would fall.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: So to have all those major, major traumatic life changes in a short space of time for a child was unbelievable. We arrived, uh, as a refugee at the age of six in the uk and that, for me, was also another experience. You know, a different culture. I remember coming out of the airport, everything looked different. The buildings, the colors, the weather, the people. Men had long hair and no mustaches. I'd never seen that before. And so for us, everything that we were doing and seeing was for the first time. It was a very surreal and traumatic experience, but also quite numbing for a child because so much had happened and you couldn't process it.

Speaker B: Yeah. But what an extraordinary story to be with parents, grandparents, in a situation where you're taken to a site where they're digging the graves, and then to. With the turn of change of events, to be able to escape, survive, and make it all the way to the uk, including your dad being poisoned, to where it was. And I have to say, for our viewers, yesterday, while we were preparing actually with Tobarn with this, we discovered an extraordinary moment of coincidence with your dad and me at the time, working with Amnest, um International as a junior, actually member in a team where the resettlement, medical evacuation, war of your dad had taken place. Love to hear more from you.

Speaker A: I mean, I think that, for me, you know, winning the Nansen Award was amazing, but actually finding out that someone is connected to our history and journey is something that I can't describe because, you know, as an activist, I've been sharing my story for a long time, and sometimes it feels like it's a movie in my head, and I'm never gonna outside m of my family. I'm never gonna meet anyone that's been part of that movie. And Then when you finally do meet someone, I think I, uh, just couldn't put it into words, but I had so many questions like, how did you find out about it? How did you know to write that letter? What happened? Like so many things were just going through my head. It was unbelievable. I think it was most probably the best experience throughout the whole awards. It's just so serendipitous the way that it happened, because it would never have happened if it wasn't for the way, the reasons for the award and the person that was looking after me like it was so serendipitous.

Speaker B: It was an extraordinary coincidence. For me it was almost like closing a loop because as humanitarians we help people, we intervene in many situations. It's rather unique 38 years later to meet that uh, daughter of a six year old girl who is now, uh, standing in front of me with the story of a moment in Job that I was part with, uh, of what had happened. Uh, and I think what was important is we never know the consequences of the acts we do. And each of us, what we do has an impact and it's kind of doing the right thing and moving is really uh, quite tremendous in terms of uh, where we do. I would like to ask you about how gender, uh, has impacted. And you talked about really being a young girl as a refugee experience being exposed to risk, being exposed to fear, building that resilience that you have built on displacement. How did gender kind of show up for you as you were growing up?

Speaker A: I think it's been a massive part. From the moment we were taken to prison, those soldiers came to our door to take my mum and the daughter.

Speaker B: No.

Speaker A: You know why? Because women are used as a weapon of war. It's the easiest way to target and dismantle the other side, if you, if you want to kind of call it in that way. And so the whole reason why we were caught was because they wanted my dad and to get my dad, they caught us. And why would that have an impact? Because we were. I was a girl and my mom was a woman. And so from the very first moment it was for that reason. My gender has always been included in that, you know. And so that experience has always stayed with me. And I think even coming here, I think my parents didn't tell the authorities about me being in prison because they were, they didn't know the systems in the uk. They didn't understand and so they were scared of me being taken away. So again, that comes from a place of protection because how do you Protect your girl. Or it might have been for cultural reasons where, you know, sometimes things happen in prison that they don't want that to be revealed or to kind of go out into the community for them to think that something might have happened to me. And so it's better to say that she was not in prison or not to say, say anything at all. So I think for me, and I've always had those questions of, wait, but this happened. Like, why wouldn't you say it in that scenario? Again, it's the reason of gender. Uh, and so for me, my personal experiences have been very tight at that in terms of women being impacted by conflict. And when I got to do my work with the lotus flower, I had no other way of doing it apart from drawing on what I know from a lived experience. And with all the women and girls that we see, you know, gender is a big part of, um, a big role that comes into it. And in terms of growing up in the uk, even the idea of being a diaspora, how do you protect your family, especially the girls? You know, there's these certain rules that are set on girls and it's all around protection. It's played a big role. But I'd say the biggest role for me and my experience has been the very day that I was taken to prison. Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah. So it's amazing because basically it was a moment where. And going through the experience where you turn a traumatic experience into respect for dignity, respect for values, respect really for the women, young girls. Uh, so clearly there was a moment where that became from a lived experience to the lotus flower creation. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Speaker A: Yeah. For me, in summer 2014, when ISIS had gone into Iraq, I decided to leave my city job in the UK and go back and support. And when I was there, I had a lot of interactions with the women and girls that had been impacted, you know, especially the Yazidi women, but all the women across. And after 15 months, when I went back to the UK, I couldn't stop thinking about them because I'd hear international organizations talking about planning their exit strategies. And I'm there going, what do you mean, exit strategy? These women and girls need protection. They need services. The camps are there now. I'm pretty sure they're going to be there for another 10 years. And so what do you do in that timeframe? And so it was born out of that, born out of pure understanding and compassion of someone who's lived through that experience, having seen it, and knowing that if I don't do Anything. There are so many things that won't be catered for for these women and girls. And so I conjured up the courage to turn my pain into purpose and, uh, and make it something that allows women and girls that have gone through this experience to basically heal, learn, and grow.

Speaker B: Yeah, um, it was the moment of incredible courage from what I could see. But also leadership, because you took a direction, you carved a path, a unique path based on your lived experience. So many people say that leadership requires position, title, authority. What do you say to them?

Speaker A: I would say it doesn't. I define myself as a leader with lived experience. So lived experience, leadership. And for me, that's the most powerful because you come from a very human angle. The moment you come from a human angle, it comes from a place of compassion and understanding and looking at solutions in a very tangible way. And I've realized that sometimes you have leaders in the room that have all the titles and that have all the accolades and have everything around them, but actually, they haven't got a clue. They haven't got a clue how to connect on a human level. And so I've figured out that if you're just honest about your leadership from a human perspective and you're led from the heart, you can still be strategic, you can still have outcomes, you can still be firm, you can still have all those other qualities. But making sure that that's what's leading you to lead others not only impacts the work that you do, but it impacts the culture in your organization, um, and the people that believe in your vision.

Speaker B: But I also hear it's about authenticity, about being genuine. And I think whoever is advocating is having their feet on the ground on what are the true stories? What is the impact to be able to tell it?

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, I think authenticity is really, really important. If I got too disconnected from the work that we do, I don't think I would be able to authentically, fully, wholeheartedly push for the things that I need for our women and girls, I think. And, uh, making sure that your feet is grounded. And that's why, I guess, we talk about the lotus flower. We always talk about being deeply, locally rooted, but globally connected. So how do you take those deep, local root insights to a global forum and connect them? And that's really, really important.

Speaker B: Can you tell us a few words about the lotus flower? What do you actually do? How do you help young girls and women?

Speaker A: So we support women and girls impacted by conflict and displacement through four SDG pillars. Education and livelihoods, peace building, and human rights. Health and safety and climate change. And under those, you know, gender equality and protection are a must across all of them. For example, we will do a women's business incubator program where we help women set up businesses, but mental health support and protection throughout that. Uh, same with education, same with climate. Like, I think you have to have protection, which includes mental health at the heart of everything. Because if someone doesn't feel safe, you can't do anything. And actually protection is quite simple. You know, I think we complicate it and sometimes in policy rooms it's just complicated, but the reality is it's ensuring someone's safety. And how do you do that? You look at all the elements that's needed to make sure that someone is safe. Say, for example, the businesses. If I have a woman who wants to start a business and be financially independent, it might be because she's in a relationship that has domestic violence. So how do we sort that out? How do we provide mental health services? Is there anything else that she needs? Does she need support with cash for legal services? You know, yes, she wants to set up a business, but there are so many other factors that will allow her to get to that point. To do that, does she need well being and confidence building? So I think protection should be at the heart of everything that we do. Without us even thinking about it. Like it's a given, it's a holistic way of working.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, thank you for saying that because that's actually the core of what we do at the humanitarian work in terms of programs, operations we support. And your example actually of putting it as a key cross cutting issue, uh, Cross Toban, I'd like to take you to your role as an advocate. You're a strong voice, a strong voice for women, for young girls, and has broadened this incredible, painful path to something positive. You are somebody who is known for speaking truth to power. And I've seen that, I've seen you, including, uh, yesterday at the Nansen Award as a woman with a refugee background. How do you strike a balance when you speak truth to power? How do you make it, uh, courageous leadership? And if you want not getting you to any troubled waters.

Speaker A: You'll be so surprised when I say this, but I was in a very abusive, coercively controlling marriage for about six years. And I came out of that marriage very broken. I couldn't speak to anyone, I couldn't look at anyone in the eye. There's absolutely no way that you would have seen me on a public stage talking. So to go from Someone who is virtually mute to doing what I do now, I realized if you don't speak up, nothing will change. And the fact that if I say something, it rings to one person in the room and it impacts one person, then it might be the one person that needs to hear it that day. And that for me is I've done the work for that day and that's it. I used to not share my story or talk about my story, but the moment I had a purpose to share my story, it just connected the dots. And it makes it even stronger because I'm not doing it for me. I'm doing it for all the women and girls that we support. And as a leader in this space that's navigating different rooms, I have to balance and be a bit of a chameleon to figure out who I am in what room and what space and what audience am I talking to? Um, no, how can I talk? Um, what do I need to change for this particular audience? Because the messaging and the could, uh, be the messaging on the tangible project or outcome that we want is the same, but your message to different audiences will just slightly tweak. And so. But I've naturally learned that as a diaspora, you know, as a diaspora Kurdish woman, you don't really 100% belong in the UK and then you don't really 100% belong in Kurdistan. And so this is not just a me issue. It's actually a diaspora thing that once you live and have home in two places, you never know where to call home. And so you learn to adapt between the two worlds. And that's given me the skill to be able to adapt my messaging to different rooms.

Speaker B: What I hear is really this thoughtfulness and adaptability key to the messaging, uh, on advocacy, on influencing, to make it appropriate for your audience in terms of where you're going.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you don't have to. Some people are one message direct to everyone. And that's great. Um, I think for me, and even for the work that we do, I believe that you have to kind of go in, understand the context, the culture, the thinking, the upbringing, everything that comes into that room. For you to be able to speak their language, you have to speak someone's language. Not literally, but I mean, you know the context of where they've come from. So you carry them on the journey and you don't get to a point where you're head to head trying to figure out a solution. Because I'm right and you're wrong. It's actually, how can we co. Create. Co. Design a solution together. And that's only going to happen from a negotiating, uh, perspective, I guess. You know, you might want an outcome with a group of people that you don't particularly like, but there's an outcome and you have to figure out how to speak to them to get to that outcome. So I think, yeah, you need to be very adaptable to get allies. And you can get allies by being adaptable.

Speaker B: Amazing. I'd like to ask you, yesterday, it was an extraordinary ceremony and a beautiful moment where you were awarded the Nansen Refugee Award by UNHCR in an incredible ceremony. What this moment meant for you? It was really a moment of clearly of recognition of the incredible journey and incredible work. But, uh, can you tell me a little bit about your feelings?

Speaker A: Wow. I can't really describe it. I mean, I've won a few awards, but yesterday was really, really, really special to me because of the journey that we've been through. You know, that hardship of being forced to flee, being persecuted, nearly facing death, and then doing all the work that you're doing for the women and girls now. So for me, that moment of recognition was really, really special. To know that it came from a place where once someone was like that and therefore the awards were born out of that. Yeah, it was a very proud moment.

Speaker B: Yeah, and very rightly to be proud. And all of us being in the audience, it was an extraordinary moment of recognition and respect, really, for the journey and the achievement, uh, having reached there. So my question is, how do you move it on now? How do you build from this moment to keep the momentum, to keep the advocacy, to keep that resilience that I can see it is contagious from you to the girls and women that you support and build in the community.

Speaker A: I think going forward, I will be a little bit more direct with my advocacy and requests, because I no longer need to prove any concept, I no longer need to prove any needs. I no longer need to say there's a problem that we need to solve. We've actually got to a point where we are the experts and we have the insights and the experience. I know what's needed. And what I'm hearing is, especially from different donors and member states, that they want to know how to work with local organizations. And so if I'm hearing this, my direct question will be, well, we know how to work with local organizations. Come and work with us and we can figure it out together. So I think I'm going to be a little bit more direct now, a

Speaker B: little more Direct in your ask. Having built on this incredible experience. And what better example? A local organization that leads and delivers directly on the front line of where it's needed to be able to get the right thing. If I was to ask you to talk to policymakers, to talk to donors or even to humanitarian leaders, leaders who work with UN, NGOS in the field, what is the one thing that you wish that, uh, they truly understood about protection? Having lived, as you said, through a

Speaker A: living experience, it's interesting you ask that because I was literally in the room with all of those yesterday and I asked it quite clearly and I said that protection is essential in anything that you want. If you want to create a program that's strong and holistic, you need to ensure that protection is included in that. And I gave them an example of a school. You want to build a school. Amazing. You need to make sure that child has id. You need to make sure that child has the right mental health to go to school. You need to make sure that child's home environment is safe and free from gender based violence or any form of violence. You need to make sure that child goes to school, school with dignity, with the right equipment and the right. And they went, oh, I went, protection's quite simple once you start breaking it down. And so my message would be to ensure that it's at, uh, the heart of everything that you do and it's in their interest, you know, if they want the success of any program. Protection allows a holistic view of ensuring something is sustainable and long lasting. I say to member states, if you want an investable environment that you're talking about, you need to start thinking about protection because that's what makes an investable environment. You might be thinking about buildings, but those buildings are quite useless if you don't have the community that's protected around it. So I would say protection is essential and make sure it's at the heart of everything that you do.

Speaker B: So, Bun, you're also your inspirational person. You're an inspirational woman, really, having carved and followed the journey and the leadership you've taken. So I want to ask you if you could give a message to young refugees, in particularly girls, who may be feeling invisible, who may be feeling powerless, who may be feeling being in a vulnerable place. So what would you tell them about their own leadership potential and where they could get.

Speaker A: Wow, I could say so much. But we have a line at the Lotus Flower, which is really, really something that I think sums it up. We say, change her story, change the world. So I believe that if someone is able to change their story, they will change the world. So that's my message to any girl, to any organization supporting girls, or any people that want to. If you change her story, then you really can change the world. Because the ripple effect of that, you

Speaker B: know, the ripple effects of investing, particularly at an early age, and building it over time to where they need to go. That's amazing. So I want to ask you, when you think about the future of protection and kind of the work that we do, what gives you hope? And, um, what would you say that it still requires courage to be able to take it further?

Speaker A: Should we talk about the reality first? The reality at the moment is, I would say protection services are actually being cut. M. Like, we've had our programs cut due to funding cuts, and so protection is kind of left last when actually it should be leading. And first, that's quite grim, I guess. But me as a person, I'm quite a hopeful person, and I'm quite optimistic, and I try and keep to that view. So for me, I think if we push on advocating for why protection is so important and adapt it to the language of whoever's in that room for them to be able to understand it, I'm hoping that more people recognize the importance and strength of it and start making it a core policy, making it a core strategic framework, uh, within everything, not just one particular area. In terms of protection. Like, I wanted to bring it back to our connection and how we were connected. So the fact that you and your team wrote a letter to protect my dad and rescue him, essentially, that ripple effect of that, uh, act of protection is me doing what I'm doing now. So sometimes humanitarians don't see the result of protection. But actually, if we had a way of tracking and seeing, you'd see the most amazing things that you've allowed people to do. So I just wanted to say thank you and just kind of highlight that. That I want people to recognize that the moment you put protection in everything that we do, you don't know what comes of it, but the greatness that comes of it is big.

Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you for saying. It really touches my heart. And thank you because, indeed, as humanitarians, it sometimes feels like a thankless task because we go in circles of assisting with protracted crisis and not seeing a solution. And what a wonderful example that you. That, um, initiative I was part of the time of Amherst International, it was a resettlement medical evacuation with somebody who was poisoned, who was really a prisoner of conscience with Amnesty International. And to see the ripple effect. And it is about that ripple effect that for every humanitarian, what we do, uh, we never see the consequences. And What a delight, 38 years later, to hear your story and have that little girl that was evacuated to hear your story today. So that has really been an extraordinary experience. Thank you for sharing that. Thaban, I really want to thank you for joining me on this podcast. Thank you for opening your heart and sharing your very personal journey and story. And what a story that turns really, a difficult moment into a positive opportunity, not just for yourself, but helping many, many other young women and girls in your community. It's also a reminder that, uh, one can build this. You really start from nothing and building it around your instinct and authentic leadership and where you want to take it and how you move it. Uh, and it's about restoring dignity, restoring the voice, uh, bringing leadership in a journey that makes change. So, really, thank you so much for, uh, joining us and sharing this with us today.

Speaker A: Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Speaker B: And I want to say to our listeners, really, thank you for staying with us in this extraordinary conversation we had today with Taban. I'm looking forward to seeing you in our next program, and please communicate and share with us any questions and thoughts that you had. Thank you. And see you at the next episode of Protection Leadership Podcast. Thank you.

Speaker A: It.