Transcriber: Els De Keyser Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard
First of all,
I'm just wondering
when people misjudge me because of my appearance.
They said that TED is
Terrorism, Entertainment, and Dictatorship
Why do people misjudge others by their appearance,
not by their success?
It's a surprise to see a veiled woman in TEDx.
Many comments criticize me because I'm veiled,
From famous writers, Fullbrighters, famous journalists...
They are blind, they cannot see the real Yemen.
The people, the values.
So, for those people, and for the whole world
I'd like to say:
Please, don't misjudge anybody.
Treat them as human beings,
who have values, who are free,
who want to live free with dignity and freedom.
(Applause)
So, excuse me, I'll start my talk in Arabic for my target audience.
I would like to talk about a friend
This the twin of Amr Gamal's puppet [referring to previous speaker]
"impossible" is a culture we grow up to know from childhood
In school, "impossible" grows up with you,
at home, you're faced with "it's impossible to do that!"
and so in college as well;
it's a terrifying culture erecting barriers between you
and the things you like to do.
I came to know this in class 4
When I returned from school one day weeping bitterly,
one of my relatives grabbed me and asked what was wrong.
I told him: "I got the second place!"
He said: "so what? I got the second rank backwards"!
"Your certificate will end up hanged in the kitchen."
A year after, in the 5th grade, I wore the full burqa.
I used to see my friends play in the streets
without being able to join them.
I was still a child. But it wasn't my family's fault...
It was rather the narrow perspective of an entire society.
Moving forward to the preparatory school
was a challenge.
And the secondary school as well
The prevailing culture in the society was that by 15 or 16,
girls should start thinking about making a family...
getting married and the sad story we all know.
While in preparatory school, I read a story about a Kuwaiti female doctor
whose name I don't know
who'd struggled bitterly to become a pediatrician.
I started to wonder,
how did she manage to stand up to all these obstacles alone?
It was at that moment that I decided to challenge
the realities around me, even by myself.
The "impossible" is to swim against the current.
I graduated from secondary school.
None of my family had ever been to college before.
So, I took my friend, rode a taxi and
- by the way, no one knows about this story but you -
Please, don't tell my family!
I took my friend and went to the university,
entered the registration Dept, grabbed the student guide and left.
I went home to my room and closed the door.
I looked at the guide and burst in tears.
I wanted to study but there wasn't anyone who would push me to go for it.
You feel like you're in a dark cave,
without any glimmer of light whatsoever.
However, I had a secret weapon... a girl-only.
It's like operating a drill. [nagging]
I had operated mine day and night for 4 months..without bearing fruit.
The school year started and I was depressed.
One day, I was going back home with my father.
Suddenly, he parked the car and said:
"hey, you want to study in college? Here it is, go and register yourself"!
To date, I'm not sure whether I went out from the car's door or window.
I was the first girl of the entire extended family to join college.
I was actually a troublemaker in college
and it was an extraordinary opening for me
I started to view the world differently.
I graduated, got a job and in my first year at work,
although unexperienced, I was the employee of the year.
One night, my father fell ill...
we needed to rush him to the hospital.
By the time we'd reached the car, I remembered that I couldn't drive.
Thank God, my father recuperated,
I restarted my drill and got a car two months later.
I have a strange habit of running away when the news are on.
Why? Because sometimes we are simply having dinner
and this picture pops up on the screen.
A lot of people are afraid of customs, traditions
and how the society perceives them.
Running away when the news are on was a habit of mine throughout 2011.
This is one of the photos we took during some projects with Abyan's IDPs;
the first documentary on the matter was shown on Aljazeera by me,
a veiled woman, which exposed me to massive criticism.
Nevertheless, I'm going on;
success stories are sometimes inspirational but
we aren't aware of their significance yet
as a mainstream culture, Yemenis are considered a failure ...
are they? Of course not!
We have so many success stories. But no one is uncovering them.
"Yemenis Success Stories" is a project aimed at exploring Yemeni treasures.
We do have treasures, and I mean it,
we do have treasures that are totally buried.
We need to unearth them using a novel method.
This is the initiative's website... offering a nomination form
through which we collect all the data of any person.
We have artists, painters, actors, scientists, writers..etc.
in a wide range of disciplines
We haven't applied any restrictions;
any one can nominate whoever they deem eligible.
I would like to present examples of those success stories;
Meet Dr. Abu Bakr AlHajj- Advisor on alternative energy for China - a Yemeni
When I was in the US, someone approached me,
in Portland and asked where I was from.
I said Yemen and he replied: "You are the angel from Yemen?"
I was surprised because there was someone in Portland named Wajdi Saeed
whose success story has abnormally impressed Americans,
I urge you to read about it.
Ms. Laila AlHebshi is a Yemeni lady living in Yemen
She had cancer in 2007. People spoke with her about death
and she was talking about life
She spent 5 years in struggle with cancer until she beat it,..
recuperated, wrote several books
and is now having a center to teach girls how to love life.
The idea behind this initiative came when one member of the team
was trying to disseminate such stories
by posting a success story every day in his Facebook account.
The kind of feedback he used to get was astonishing with people saying,
" this is what we want to see".
I thank all of those who devote time to gather success stories
The stories will be collected,
brought before a committee for further verification.
Then we will publish a book about them.
We are not just aiming at a book ...
but rather a database that can be used by the government itself.
We have professionals in education and medicine,
but in the end, it's tracking them that matters
God's willing, we will be the ones to outreach to them.
Today, in TEDx for me at least, I don't have to run.
Because, for the first time, my family is watching me online.
I'm very happy and proud of my father Ahmed AlSulimani,
Who's taught me a lot of things and put up with a lot for me.
He stood up to reality, to the society and faced the music,
shouldered the pain...
Sometimes he just wasn't convinced with what I was doing.
But out of his love, he stood with me nonetheless.
Today, I'm proud of my sisters; the doctor and the graphic-designer.
I'm proud that those who told me that my certificate
would be hanged in the kitchen,
have daughters studying in the university today.
And those who criticized me for driving, have cars today and do drive.
And those who didn't work, are now working.
Let's be honest:
"impossible"...the word we had to live with for long.
The culture of upbringing.
A word that each. and everyone of us has a story with
So, can we from now on just...
Thank you.