Transcriber: Paula Lopez Minguez Reviewer: Hiroko Kawano
If I were to ask you, 'Where are you from?'
how difficult would that be to answer?
Another question.
How many of you feel British
but also have another cultural background -
a sort of double or triple identity even?
In fact, 46% of the population here in Birmingham
has a migration background.
Indian, Polish, Pakistani - all living with a double identity.
Just like me.
For a long time, I felt rather confused about my double identity.
Today, I would like to share with you
how I discovered
that having a double identity can become your secret superpower.
In fact, I believe it even deserves its own special name.
That's why I came up with D.I.P. -
Double Identity Person.
When I was eight years old,
I moved - we basically fled - with my family
from Belarus to the Netherlands.
We lived as refugees in an asylum centre,
with great uncertainty whether we could stay or had to go back.
But after two years, we got the good news.
We would become real Dutch citizens.
And this I took very seriously.
During my teenage years, all I wanted -
besides not having to study and attention from boys -
was to be a real Dutch 'van Jansens' or 'Smits'.
OK, I'm blue-eyed, blond.
That helped.
But my last name, Cheriakova, and my Belarusian mom
were not so easy to hide.
I didn't want that people would see me as a foreigner.
I was desperate to fit in, to be Dutch.
I didn't want anything to do with Belarus.
This changed when I had to choose my master's.
I suddenly realised that I had something that all these 'van Jansens' didn't have:
a Belarusian background,
knowledge of the Russian language
and the understanding of the Belarusian culture.
While everyone around me tried hard to find a niche and their specialization,
I found mine:
Slavic studies.
After my master's,
I had this overwhelming urge to get my lost Belarusian identity back.
I needed to go back to Belarus.
I found a job as a volunteer in Minsk, the capital of Belarus,
where I had to promote the Dutch culture.
My mother couldn't believe her ears.
'I took you away from there.
Now you're going back?'
But luckily, I didn't have much time to explain myself,
as within two weeks, I was back in Minsk.
The moment I stepped foot there, I felt like coming back home.
Three things happened
where my double identity - being Dutch and Belarusian -
helped me to change myself and develop myself
and make a difference in Belarus.
The first thing had to do with me
bringing my Dutch experiences and connections
to develop social entrepreneurship there.
I met many conscious Belarusians
who desperately wanted to help people in need -
elderly people, people with disabilities or young mothers -
but just didn't know how.
Back in the Netherlands,
I had the chance to learn about social entrepreneurship
in theory and in practice.
I was convinced
that with the right practical tools, knowledge and support,
many would be able to start their own social business
and change many lives.
Together with a Belarusian friend,
we received funding from the Dutch government
to start a social entrepreneurship training program called 'SocStarter'.
And during SocStarter, we educated 60 Belarusians on social entrepreneurship.
We connected them to potential clients,
and we organized a study trip to the Netherlands.
During this study trip,
they had the chance to learn about the Dutch entrepreneurial climate,
and they got inspired to bring some best practices back home.
One example -
I forgot about a very good example that I would like to share with you
is how two of our participants - Olga and Ludmila -
how we connected them to their very first client,
the office of the United Nations in Minsk.
You see, Olga's and Ludmila's mission is to make Belarus accessible -
all buildings in Belarus accessible for people with disabilities.
Thanks to their hard work, the office of the United Nations in Minsk
can call itself the best practice model, globally, as a barrier-free workspace.
Today I continue promoting social entrepreneurship in Minsk, Belarus,
via a similar but a larger program called 'Biz4All',
and here again,
the connections to the Dutch partners, experiences and experts is key.
The second thing I found
was that the Belarusians I connected with
didn't have a clear Belarusian identity,
which is not really strange if you know a bit about their history.
Belarus belonged to other kingdoms and the Soviet Union for a very long time.
Another problem had to do with their language.
There is a beautiful Belarusian language.
It is just not very often spoken.
Russian language is the dominant language in Belarus.
I thought I could help
as an outsider with an outsider perspective and position.
So I got together with Marta, who is also a D.I.P.,
only an American-Belarusian D.I.P.
And, you see, the good thing about being a D.I.P.
is that you can switch back and forth between two identities.
So we used this.
We started a blog,
writing and illustrating a blog
called 'It's Belarus, Babe'.
And we started to write about everything that makes Belarusians Belarusians:
their obsession with potatoes,
(Laughter)
their love for the countryside
and, of course, the Belarusian language.
This blog turned into a book called 'It's Belarus, Babe!'.
And it's been received quite well in Belarus.
It has raised many positive and some negative emotions.
But no matter what emotions it raises,
the book does what it was set to do:
unite Belarusians.
Today I've written seven books, all in Belarusian and English language,
all of them with the purpose to unite Belarusians.
Lack of tourism was the third challenge I thought I could tackle.
Who else than a D.I.P. can promote Belarus as an attractive tourist destination
to the Dutch and the Europeans?
So now, we're writing and crowdfunding
a socially conscious travel guide to Minsk,
called 'Minsk in Socks',
with the mission to promote Minsk and Belarus
as an exotic tourist destination in Europe.
I've spoken about the good experiences I had.
However, it is not only positive.
Being a D.I.P, can be quite challenging, as some of you may know.
Fitting into one culture can cause anxiety and stress.
It can make you feel alone and not fitting in anywhere.
I found this beautiful Tibetan saying that made me feel better many times
and that made me rethink of what home actually means.
And it goes like this:
'Everywhere where you have friends
is your motherland.
And everywhere where you receive love
is your home'.
But back to the secret superpower.
Research has shown that people with a double identity and bilinguals
are less restricted to one world view
and more open and adaptive to change.
They have a greater understanding and appreciation
for people of other cultures.
They're good in thinking up solutions
because they can tap into two different languages and worlds.
Another strength of D.I.P.'s
is one of being a bridge between two nations,
offering experiences, expertise and new ideas to another country.
The world is getting smaller and smaller,
and soon, many of us
won't be able to identify oneself with one single nation or culture,
which, in my opinion, is a good thing.
For the ones out here who don't have a double identity,
don't worry.
Interact with D.I.P.'s and learn from them.
Of course, it's never too late to move abroad
and become a cool D.I.P. yourself.
But if you are a D.I.P.,
don't neglect who you are
and the identities you're carrying with you.
You don't have to do what I did -
move to Belarus,
eat potato with every meal or write crazy comic books.
But I would like to encourage you to use your double identity as your strength,
as your own secret superpower to do beautiful things in this world.
Thank you.
(Applause)