Internationale Vrouwendag: The urban woman in Cheyma Al Mehraj

For several months, Cheyma Al Mehraj has been Diversity and Inclusion project leader for the EUTOPIA project and part of VUB’s Equality Team. She is also co-founder of The Urban Woman, an enterprise that supports female entrepreneurs professionally and personally. Read her inspiring story.

Cheyma has only been working at VUB for a few months, but she’s quickly become an important part of the Equality Team. As a law graduate, she already had a special connection with our university. “In the third or fourth year of Latin and modern languages, during the Dutch course we had to have a debate. I chose as my subject the headscarf ban, something that to this day I am strongly against. During my testimony I immediately knew: law, that’s what I want to study! I wanted to be able to support and defend people struggling against unfair situations, people or institutions.”

Motivated by a great sense of justice, she began her law degree at VUB 10 years ago, which she successfully completed. “After university I decided to take a year for myself. I did the odd student job so that I could travel a bit before starting my professional career. Seriously, best choice ever! It helps you to get everything straight and really think about what direction you want to go in, something I didn’t know right after my studies.”

Eventually she got her first job at a non-profit providing legal assistance to refugees and asylum seekers. “But in the end it wasn’t really in line with what I wanted to achieve – a greater social impact, change and innovation – so I started looking for something else and ended up at VUB.”

Why did you choose VUB, for your studies and now?

“Though I grew up in Willebroek, Brussels was an obvious choice. Brussels is a great melting pot. It’s a city where I recognise myself, through the various languages that are spoken there, and where various cultures, nationalities and religions co-exist. I also found the student population at VUB very diverse.

“For my previous job, I had to go to Leuven. A city where I felt less at home. When I saw that my alma mater had published a vacancy that fulfilled my interests and aligned better with my ambitions, and meant that I could go back to Brussels, I was totally thrilled to apply for it.”

Your function at VUB is relatively new. What exactly does it involve?

“In French we say: je porte plusieurs casquettes (I wear many hats). First, with Prof Dr Karen Celis, I’m part of the EUTOPIA project as project leader for Diversity and Inclusion. EUTOPIA is an alliance of six European universities that aims to transform institutions into challenge-led, student-centred, place-based and inclusive universities.”

“I’m also a member of the fantastic Equality Team, where I mainly represent the VUB Equality Network – also known as VEN. It’s a great initiative that came out of the conversations about racism that took place with rector Caroline Pauwels. The aim of this network is to offer VUB students and staff a platform for the problems and solutions formulated by its members, to connect and support them, and to co-create VUB’s equality policy on subjects such as equality, diversity and inclusion. Finally, I also support the Fatima Mernissi chair, under the supervision of Prof Dr Iman Lechkar.”

You started at VUB in November 2020. What’s been your experience of starting a new job under the coronavirus measures and how have you dealt with it?

“In all honesty, I have to admit I underestimated it. It wasn’t always easy at the start. I’ve never met my colleagues in real life, I’ve never been to the campus and so I have no idea what my office looks like… And I’m really looking forward to the social contact on campus with the students and other staff. I also underestimated the size of VUB as an institution; every day I meet new people! Luckily I’ve had an enormous amount of help from my colleagues in the Equality Team. However, I’ve noticed that I have less resilience than a year ago. So I try to do more exercise and to go outside every day, and to meet people (albeit at a safe distance).

What challenges are you facing in your job at the moment and how do you want to tackle them?

“In the short time I’ve been working at VUB, I’ve seen that there has been lots of good work undertaken in terms of diversity, but on the other hand there is still a lot to do. To be able to serve a diverse student population and to shape policy for them, we first need a more diverse staff who understand and can meet the needs of these students. It would be great if we could give a chance within the organisation to more young people with a migration background, via a student job and later as a fully fledged employee.

“On the other hand, it’s one of my missions to offer more diverse students a platform where in a safe space they can be critical of VUB policy and question VUB and its actions. That way we can work at a university where students feel at home, can be themselves and there is no question of assimilation.

“I think VUB definitely has the necessary goodwill to achieve this, I just sometimes have the impression that it is still very cautious in taking a fixed position on it. One of my favourite quotes from Rosa Parks that applies here is: ‘To bring change, you must not be afraid to take the first step. We will fail when we fail to try.’”

You’re also busy outside VUB hours. Can you tell us more about The Urban Woman and how the idea to create it came about?

“That’s right! The Urban Woman is pretty much my first baby. My sister Bouchra and I developed it. It’s an enterprise that supports female entrepreneurs professionally and personally by offering them customised coaching so they can do business in a way that suits who they are. We offer a programme where each step of the business is closely examined, from setting up a LinkedIn profile to making a financial plan. It’s since grown to a great community of entrepreneurial women who are all hugely passionate about their business or non-profit. It’s great how these women support and encourage each other: sisterhood on top!

“We also offer them a physical space where women can develop their projects with the necessary guidance. Our coworking space is in the heart of Brussels, close to Louizalaan. Ideal for the shopping queens among us!

“The idea grew out of our own needs. My sister has her own consultancy bureau in change management. She found that the organisations she supported were often fairly white and didn’t understand her specific needs. Entrepreneurship is also very often regarded as masculine and that is reflected in the way businesses are formed and managed. We show that it can be done differently, in a gentle but equally successful way.

“We now have a team of six women who support the entrepreneurs in the TUW community. You can find more information on our website, or holla at me on  Instagram, Linkedin of Facebook."

What strucks me is that you use negative personal experiences with racism and inequality in a positive way to deal with things and to change them. What would you say to colleagues and students who are confronted with this themselves? And what about people or institutions who are guilty of (unconsciously) acting this way? 

“Over the years I’ve learned to create more resilience in this respect by adopting a positive mindset instead of a negative one. When I decided to look for a job after my studies, I noticed that there were huge misconceptions about diversity and inclusion. I am a young woman with the will to bring about change on the work floor, as my generation no longer wants to be silent and wants to tackle social inequality in a constructive way, and give everyone the chance based on their talent and skills and not how they look. The success of each organisation is in the diversity of its teams when they know how to deal with this.”

Where do you think VUB is doing well on equality, and where are the most important areas for improvement?

“I believe that women at VUB have the chance, based on their skills and talent, to achieve positions where important decisions are made and where women can make their demands heard. My perception is that there needs to be attention paid to attracting women of colour to high-level positions so that the needs of students of colour can be understood and the image of society can be reflected. Don’t get me wrong: the fact that Caroline Pauwels is already there has a positive influence on other universities. But having a rector with the name Rania or Soraya shows young women, especially in Belgium, that with the right tools and guidance, they too can achieve such positions.”

The world needs women. Literally. Because women bring solutions. For economic crises. For better health care. For climate warming. Discrimination on the basis of gender - unfortunately still a reality - is therefore a brake on sustainable development, peace and progress. The Genderweek from March 8 to 12 puts a finger on the wound and goes in search of causes and remedies during workshops, lectures and a movie night with debate afterwards. So go check it out, everyone. And yes, men too. 

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