May 08, 2021 - 1037 views
“From suppression to expression” was the intriguing title of a talk given to Rotarians at their Llandudno online meeting last month.
The speaker was Ghazala Jabeen, who outlined her life from coming to Britain from Pakistan as a 6-year-old child.
Her talk highlighed the culture shock that this entailed. Paradoxically and frighteningly, this adjustment to a brand new culture was nought compared with trying to square the social expectations and opportunities of life in Britain with the overbearing and threatening expectations of the family for their daughter.
Threatened violence, elopement and police protection all arose from a culture gap between the generations that Ghazala found it impossible to bridge.
The positive side to Ghazala’s story is that from that troubled start there followed a happy marriage, three children, relative prosperity and the opportunity to express her creativity in ways as varied as running an estate agency business with her husband, studying sports science at Bangor University, the formation of a fitness business, running a marketing consultancy and becoming an author of a book called ‘Loved.Lived.Lost’.
Ghazala’s mantra is “Choices – we all have them” and it is significant that throughout her talk there was never a scintilla of doubt, dismay or fear in her outlook on life
Her friend, Rotarian Sarah Kennedy-Ratcliffe, herself a social entrepreneur, gave the vote of thanks on behalf of fellow members.
