I have been working as a Project Manager at the CDO team since April 2020. At the moment I am managing the following: the summer programme Get Ready for new first-generation students; Home Work Hub, a Community Service program to improve equality in secondary education in the city of Amsterdam, and lastly; the mentoring programme Meet your Mentor, in which Master students with an ethnic minority background are supported in their transition to the job market. Besides my work for the CDO team, I collaborate with the HR Policy & Strategy dept. on DEI-policy, such as the Gender Equality Plan.

Due to prejudices, a lack of role models and proper guidance it took a while before I found myself at the university and find a job that equals an academic degree. With the programmes that I am managing I prevent others to go through the same struggle and that gives me tremendous satisfaction. I find it important to give space to those who are underrepresented in order to share their stories, therefore I also organize literature programs, interview people with an ethnic minority background and write about my family history.

I was appointed as Central Diversity Officer in February 2022. As Central Diversity Officer, I am committed to promoting equal rights, inclusion and diversity within the university. Together with my team, I work closely together with students, lecturers and staff to increase awareness of diversity and inclusion and to deploy their network and expertise to support valuable changes in policy and actions that help increase diversity and inclusion in our research, education and campus culture.

My personal engagement with diversity and inclusion started in my scientific work. In addition, together with my partner, I have set up the Keti Koti Dialogue Table, which aims to bring people together to personally reflect on the history of colonialism. My aim is for us to jointly create a university where everyone can excel, regardless of their background and identities.

I have been working as a management assistant at the Central Diversity Office since July 2022. Therefore, I am the contact person for practical and administrative matters within the CDO. As such, I am regularly in touch with people from different echelons within the university. I enjoy helping these people connect with each other.

I view diversity and inclusion as a challenge for which you need the sensitivity to grasp that one person’s wishes may cross another person’s boundaries. I try to find a middle ground, and in doing so, I feel it’s important for everyone to feel heard and accepted as they are. In addition to my duties at the CDO, I work at the Islamic Theological Faculty in Amsterdam (IUA), because I feel it’s important that Muslims can pursue professional careers and contribute to the pluralist society we live in from an Islamic perspective.