NAS and before I got asked to do this
talk I actually had to Google the word
perseverance to find the definition
because you know I had to make sure I
wasn’t signing my life away to something
so growing up it was hard for me I mean
I was born in Finland and I came here at
the age of 8 so being in a country where
you don’t understand the language that
is spoken it was very difficult for me
and I had to catch up really quickly
with the pupil in my school and stuff
and so the first time I kind of realized
that I was different was when I was in
year 3 and I used to wear a headscarf
and when I was playing in a playground
this girl actually just came up to me
and pulled my headscarf off my head and
for me that was a significant impact
that had on my life so growing up I kind
of had these battles with my ethnic my
ethnicity and my culture because I was
Somali and I was born in Finland and
then I had to come here and learn the
culture in the UK then secondary school
I was picked out I stopped wearing the
headscarf and then ii was like wearing
the headscarf again and my head head of
house came to me and said why wearing
that so again it was a spat with who am
i do i need to fit in what do I need to
wear and things like that
so after I finished school I attended my
a levels and I met a woman called Lisa
and she introduced me to this charity
called integrate Bristol which allowed
me to kind of explore my creative side
and I was involved in a play called my
normal life which kind of explored
gender violence and violence against
women and things like that so I started
to explore the creative side that was in
me and growing up I didn’t see a lot of
women who looked like me who were Muslim
who were black in the creative
industry so this kind of inspired me to
go forward with it we managed to do a
petition to Michael Gove and to get him
on board to educate the young people on
FGM which is why female genital
mutilation and this petition actually
got over 200,000 signatures so this was
such a big we got a lot of attention for
this and we kind of realized as young
people we could actually make a
difference and this inspired me to
further continue with what I wanted to
do at the time after I finished my
a-levels I went into college to study
fashion and I actually ended up getting
kicked off the course on the final day
because I wasn’t really going in and I
realized it wasn’t something for me and
growing up a lot at the time I was told
I couldn’t do something and I couldn’t
achieve a lot of things and so after I
failed that I actually applied for
university to see if I could get in but
with the port failure that I had and a
lot of the industries that I’ve worked
with I actually managed to go into
University so I went back into my
fashion course and to collect my folders
and things like that and I was just
saying to the teachers like yep I’m
going to university even though after
they told me I couldn’t make it so that
was one of the battles I had to face
then after in university I kind of
looked around and throughout these
institutions I realized there wasn’t
other girls like me there wasn’t girls
who were black and Muslim in these
places I was going to and it kind of odd
me to start my youtube channel and with
my youtube channel it was put in a
representation because a lot of people
have this conception that Muslim women
are oppressed and you know they’re not
allowed to do certain things and things
like that and I wanted to fight that
stereotype so I started making my
youtube channel and just posting rants
and things like that and I actually
managed to become partnered with YouTube
so making YouTube videos I get paid from
it and I had a lot of young girls coming
up saying you inspire me and there isn’t
a lot of girls out there like who I can
actually look up to and things like that
so after I managed to do that
I kind of took it upon myself to make it
a mission to have to inspire young
people to actually get up and do
something with their lives to pursue
their passions and things like that so I
started right in like right and music
and spoken were there things like that
music was something that I was into I
was still part of the campaign so one of
the one of our things that we do is kind
of try and engage young people through
media and social media platforms and
things like that so we started making
music videos and I was actually
fortunate enough to be the rapper in
some of their songs and that kind of
gave me more of a confidence boost to
continue doing what I was doing because
it I’ve received like a lot of feedback
from that so I’ve read little spoken
word that I want to read out to you guys
and so it starts off as Apollo rocket
flying out into space stars and moons
the fire burns to appeal to my inner
state it’s good to be great but it’s
better to be greater greater like the
kitchen utensil knife forks spoons and
menus chefs creating souffles and
desserts is my metaphor for whipping up
spoken word but this is more than a
moment this is history is potent
meaningful like African elephants and
the smallest of rodents we’re all part
of the same ecosystem driving forward
with pistons and engines like the inner
city of Detroit before the economy went
bust and his government’s had enough but
I’m relevant to the people I’m teaching
my community is what I’m reaching
powerful character I’m speaking Plato or
Aristotle for a reason no treason no
case no courtrooms no bass no treble
I don’t watch face while I’m empowering
the youth today I’m from the Horn of
Africa where we blow trumpets just to
make noise but I’m now resonating in
London youth empowerment I made a choice
to help those who feel cold who are
always told they can’t even make it
let’s face it preach truth don’t fake it
see an opportunity take it
bad habits get them and break it
showcasing talents though raw positivity
so rule but my passion is so raw like my
mindset so raw and my tongue is so raw and my soul is so rule thank you