HASEENA PATEL
- ACTIVIST, SPEAKER and AUTHOR -
Welcome to my first guest from South Africa. Haseena Patel is a girls’ empowerment coach, activist, speaker and author. Her own life journey led to her writing her first book, I Choose Victory: find light in the
darkness of a life-changing crisis.
Girls’ empowerment, along with gender equality, has always been
something that Haseena felt strongly about, and in 2010, together with her
sister, Shameema Patel, she founded Leave No Girl Behind International. This is an organization that inspires girls
to live up to their own potential and raises awareness about the necessity of empowering
girls, through international projects and programs.
OTHER THAN WRITING, WHAT ELSE DO YOU LOVE?
IF YOU WERE STUCK ON A DESERT ISLAND WITH ONE PERSON, WHO WOULD YOU LIKE IT TO BE? WHY?
Haseena’s
latest book, which she co-authored with Shameema, is titled Leave
No Girl Behind: How to help girls become
the change in our world. Haseena is an ardent Harry Potter fan,
is passionate about becoming a naturopathic physician, and also dreams of
creating her own unique clothing line some day!!
Welcome, Haseena ...
TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR WRITING JOURNEY.
I always felt comfortable in the world of English, and
reading and writing. I started to write
poems when I was eight years old, and I never stopped. At that point I knew I wanted to be a poet –
of course that idea evolved into the dream of being an author. Making a difference somehow through writing
has always felt like my true calling.
WHAT IS THE AIM OF YOUR BLOG?
I have two
blogs. My sister, Shameema, and I
founded an organisation to empower girls – Leave No Girl Behind International (www.leavenogirlbehind.org), and my
blog on this site is to empower girls and raise awareness about its necessity
right now, and also to encourage a global dialogue about girls’ empowerment and
its far reaching purpose.
My other blog, www.ink4haseena.wordpress.com is
my indulgence, so to speak. It is just
about me – my personal thoughts and emotions, and the joy of the process of
writing them down.
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO CREATE A BLOG?
I started ink4haseena after taking a course about being
an author of change. For some reason, it
was during that course that I rediscovered the joy of writing without thinking
about my purpose or even keeping in mind what my readers would think. I describe that feeling as running free in
the land of words without any thought to who was around! Pure, carefree joy and freedom!
WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT BEING A
WRITER?
Just the title of “writer” is really liberating – it
almost gives you permission to be eccentric; to step out of the crowd and make
your own unique mark on the world. After
what seems like a lifetime of conforming to other people’s rules, this is true
freedom to live my life on my own terms!
And there is nothing that compares to the power of words!
WHAT IS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT BEING A
WRITER?
Probably the marketing.
Without marketing, your writing won’t have readers, and the words won’t
come alive or make an impact. (What do
our words really mean if there is no one to read them?). So marketing and writing are two sides of
the same coin. I LOVE the writing
process, but the marketing is not as easy.
WHAT WERE YOU IN A PAST LIFE, BEFORE YOUR
BLOG?
I’m sure I was a healer of some kind.
WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT PROMOTING
OTHERS?
I love seeing others taking a step up, live their
passion, and make an impact. It’s
wonderful to have even a small part in that.
WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON AT THE MOMENT?
Shameema and I have just published our book, Leave
No Girl Behind: How to help girls become the change in our world – the hard copy and the Kindle
version. That’s really exciting!! It’s been a two year project, and I’m really
looking forward to this book touching lives and bringing about change in its
own unique way.
We’ve also launched
our Girls’ Power Circles, our newest program which is a support system for groups
of girls, and teaches them leadership skills, provides a safe environment to
discuss their challenges, and inspires them to start community outreach
projects. http://www.leavenogirlbehind.org/programs/.
And we’ve just started our new venture, www.mizwords.com – a site to help
non-fiction writers build their brand, and we also offer individual services
such as writing, transcription, editing, logo design, website design and more.
WHAT INSPIRES YOU?
The dream of creating something (writing something) that
will make an enormous difference on our planet!
ARE YOU A WRITER?
Answered this with the other questions above.
WHAT GENRE DO YOU WRITE?
Non-fiction self help books…but I know there is a fiction
book in me waiting for a courageous moment to emerge!
DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS FOR NEW WRITERS?
Write, write and write!!
Engage in social media sites, start a blog and post it EVERYWHERE you
can. Give yourself some silent time
during the day (whatever time of day is your most creative time) where the
writing can just flow…Even fifteen minutes a day can make a difference. And when those people who are successful
writers give you advice, take it all in – absorb it like a sponge! Always believe in your writing!
DO YOU SUFFER FROM WRITER’S BLOCK?
Never!
DO YOU HAVE A PREFERRED WRITING SCHEDULE?
I wish I did! I’d
love to take hours at a time and just write with no disturbances
whatsoever. I take whatever bits of time
I can get, but I usually write late at night when everything is quiet and I can
be alone in my writing zone.
DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE WRITING PLACE?
My bedroom – that’s where I do all my writing.
WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST JOY IN WRITING?
The actual writing process – just being in that bubble in
a time and space of my own where only words live, and the rest of the world has
disappeared. There’s nothing quite like
it!
WHO IS YOUR FAVOURITE AUTHOR AND WHY?
Probably Jo Rowling!
I remember the absolute joy and sense of adventure I’d feel when I read
fiction as a child. I’d feel excited and
exhilarated! As an adult, no fiction
book seemed to do that for me, until Harry Potter! I’m deeply grateful to Jo Rowling for
bringing that feeling back to me (it was there even when I read the Harry
Potter series for the second and third time!).
WHAT’S THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT YOU EVER
RECEIVED FROM A READER OF YOUR BLOG/BOOK?
A few years ago, I received an email from a lady who had
just read I Choose Victory: Find light in the darkness of a life-changing crisis
– she said that reading it gave her the first glimmer of hope she’d had in two
years!
Last year, Betty Makoni (2009 CNN Hero and well known
girls’ rights activist) told Shameema and I that our book, Leave No Girl Behind: How to help
girls become the change in our world, is a “powerful empowerment manual
that every girl needs to read”.
WHAT WAS THE WORST COMMENT FROM A READER?
Thankfully I haven’t had one of those yet…
WRITERS ARE SOMETIMES INFLUENCED BY THINGS
THAT HAPPEN IN THEIR OWN LIVES. ARE YOU?
Most definitely! I
write my emotions and life experiences into my books and blogs. One can extract purpose and lessons from
every single life experience – that is the starting point for all my writing.
OTHER THAN WRITING, WHAT ELSE DO YOU LOVE?
Empowering girls! Listening
to good music, and making music (wish I was better at that!). And I’ve just discovered my passion of
writing letters – real, handwritten letters sent by snail mail, that very few
people bother to write anymore.
IF YOU HAD AN OPPORTUNITY TO SPEAK TO THE
ENTIRE WORLD, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY?
Look around you.
What you want is what the person next to you wants. What you see in the eyes of the people around
you is what is reflected in your own eyes.
The dreams that you have for your family are the same dreams that others
have for their own families. We are
connected in every sense of the word.
Whatever words you speak to others; whatever actions you take to love or
to hurt others – those words and actions cannot do anything else but return to
you with the same intentions; with the same force and the same emotions.
DESCRIBE YOUR PERFECT DAY.
I don’t look for perfect anymore. Life is imperfect, so I search for the
perfection in the imperfections – the greater Divine purpose in
everything. And just by doing that, one
discovers such miracles in life. A
wonderful example of this occurred a few Wednesdays ago. Shameema and I have a radio show to empower
girls, called The Girl Factor. At that stage we were with a live radio station. Our guest
for the week couldn’t be on our show due to circumstances beyond her control,
and she wasn’t able to let us know that she wouldn’t be on the show. I had to go on air and be totally
spontaneous. Shameema immediately
started thinking of discussion topics and questions while I discussed
everything about girls’ empowerment I could think of! Fifteen minutes into my discussion (or
rather, my monologue!), my “other mother” and “adopted dad” from Montana,
U.S.A., the awesome people they are, called in to the show and rescued me!
We ended up having a wonderful, spontaneous discussion
that never would have happened without this “imperfection”. And the best part is that the day before the
show, I had been thinking of my adopted dad and how I hadn’t spoken to him in a
while and I missed him – I was able to spend half an hour talking to him on the
show, and later, off air, we spoke again.
That was perfection! I can’t
think of any greater feeling than spending time with the people we love…even
if, in my case, it was by phone from a continent away!
WHAT ARE YOUR GREATEST ASSETS AS A WRITER?
My vulnerability and my honesty when I write.
IF YOU WERE STUCK ON A DESERT ISLAND WITH ONE PERSON, WHO WOULD YOU LIKE IT TO BE? WHY?
Probably
Barack Obama. I read The Audacity of
Hope, and would like to spend time talking to him. I also recognise that he is definitely one of
the greats, and the personification of Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s dream coming
true. There’s that, and the fact that if
I were stuck on a desert island with President Obama, then I’d be sure of being
rescued since the Secret Service would be looking for him, lol!
WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE?
Need I say that I want to write many more books?! I also want to take massive action in
empowering girls globally through Leave No Girl Behind International. My biggest dream is to move to the
U.S.A. (myself and my family) and continue making a difference in girls’ lives
from there since there are so many more opportunities to do this in the
U.S.A. I dream about this every day and
am in the process of creating it!
WHAT FIVE BOOKS WOULD YOU TAKE TO HEAVEN?
· Hmmm…Firstly, the
Harry Potter series (Can I make all seven count as one book since it’s the same
series? If not then I choose Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows.).
· Flying Tigress by Norah O’ Neill
(to remind me how women before me fought to give women like me equal rights).
· The Last Lecture by Randy Pausche
· The last two books
would be Leave No Girl Behind: How to help girls become the change in our world
by Shameema and I, and also I Choose Victory: Find light in the darkness of a life-changing
crisis – which I wrote. The
reason for these two books is that they would remind me of the lessons I
learned on earth, what I was passionate about in this lifetime, and also what I
managed to accomplish during difficult times.
ANYTHING YOU’D LIKE TO ADD?
I feel honoured to be featured on
your blog, Clancy. Thank you.
Amazon: 'I Choose Victory'
Clancy's comment: In Haseena's amazing work,
she has created a host of programs that teach young girls to respect themselves
and who they are in order to remove the possibilities of abuse that may target
them. She works in the dirty fields of trafficking prevention by teaching
young girls that their voice matters, that their bodies matter, that their
minds matter BEFORE monsters approach and try to bring them into THE
LIFE.
Thank you, Haseena. Keep going.
Love ya work!
I'm ...
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