I am so glad you could join us. I'm your host Mo Gaudet. This podcast is nothing more than a conversation between two good friends sharing inspiring life stories and perhaps

some nuggets of wisdom along the way.

This is your invitation to slow down with us.

Welcome to Slo-Mow. Thanks for joining us. Today's guest reminds me of a very personal story.

When my wonderful son Ali went to apply for universities. He wrote an essay that basically spoke about how he was not fully welcome to blend into his homeland, the Middle East East while he was also not fully

welcome to blend into the West. Ali in his teenage years had dreadlocks, beautiful

dreadlocks made him very handsome. And as he would walk into Dubai Airport or Egypt,

airport, Cairo Airport or whatever, dreadlocks were not common at all in the Middle East and so the

image of them is you you know, what this person is different.

And so he would actually be questioned for the way he looks.

And then if he flew to a European airport or an American airport, he would be questioned for his name,

Ali, and his ethnicity, Middle Eastern.

And he wrote, with full heart really about how it is that we humans create those silos even though Ali and my wonderful daughter Aaya are truly global citizens in so many ways how they were not allowed to become those

citizens that they actually are. So today's guest caught my attention because in many ways this is what she's trying to fix about the world.

She's trying to make our world a little more welcoming to all of us if you think that the world is not owned by whites or colored

skinned or males or females or certain genders or certain ethnicities or you know if you really think about it that way

Yasmin with Iran is attempting to make that our reality that we all belong. Her foundation is known as we

belong and she's attempting to do exactly that. Her story started when she was named the Young Person of the Year, the European Young

Person of the Year by the Shivartskov Foundation in 2019. She was 23 at the time and she was wearing a headscarf. Personal choice that she felt

she had the right to live by and you would think that being chosen as the

European young person of the year is amazing like it opens up

opportunities and it's one of the most remarkable honorary

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