“Zahra is a mother, a working woman, a dreamer, ambitious, Kuwaiti woman who wants the best for the entire country but especially the mothers in this country. I believe in women, I believe in her strength, and I believe that she is the heart of society.” Speech therapist and life coach Zahra Taqi guides us through all the ways you can empower women and liberate them from the box that society puts them in.
Zahra’s interest in speech therapy began when one of her family members suffered a stroke when she was in high school and lost his ability to speak, because her father worked in the rehabilitation field, he would help them recover and she used to join him as an observer, which led her to start researching the topic which gave her a new perspective and made her pursue speech therapy in Northeastern University, especially with seeing the lack of them in Kuwait. Zahra explains that contrary to popular belief, speech therapy is not only for disabled people or people who experienced accidents but is something for all people of all ages starting at birth.
A major turning point for Zahra was when she had to move to Japan because of her husband’s job, the first question that she asked herself when she found herself in this completely new and unfamiliar place was, how do I want to spend my time. She decided to start learning the language and culture, through her research she saw how life coaching closely connected to her passion of speech therapy and decided to obtain a certificate in the field. She started coaching online in Japan and worked with people from all over the world which helped her with time management due to the time zone differences and also helped her continue working on her passion. “It is good to be a mother, but it is also good to show my children that my work does not end by being a mother.”
Moving to Japan also gave Zahra inspiration to open her own nursery, Bamboo Pre-school. Her dream of opening a nursery started in Boston when she had to work in schools as part of her study, and it was one of her goals to introduce a new way of learning to Kuwait. She noticed that her children loved going to school and dreaded weekends in Japan, which was a surprise as kids usually feel forced to attend school. By studying the schooling system in Japan as well as the history of Germany and Japan rebuilding their education after World War II, Zahra was able to successfully apply and integrate the system in her own pre-school.
For Zahra women empowerment always comes first, so how does she empower women? Giving a woman the chance to be creative without limiting her is the best way to do so, which is why she says that empowering women starts with education. She tries her best to provide such opportunities for women and create a work-life balance that allows her to reach her full potential, which also means they are allowed to make mistakes as it is a part of the learning process. When faced with the stereotypical phrase “The woman is a woman’s enemy” Zahra naturally disagrees and challenges it by focusing on every women’s strength and puts them together to create one strong united team. If a woman does not support or believe her sister, no one will, which is why Zahra believes that woman uniting is also a major form of women empowerment that starts with breaking stereotypes.
Ultimately, this insightful episode of Lei Wa Lakom takes us into a different world and invites to change our way of thinking when it comes to themes of womanhood.
