“From suppression to expression”

“From suppression to expression” 

“From suppression to expression” was the intriguing title of a  talk given to 13 Rotarians at their Llandudno Rotary Zoom meeting on Tuesday 27^th April 2021 

The speaker was Ghazala Jabeen, who outlined her life from coming to Britain from Pakistan as a 6-year-old child; her talk was replete with examples of the culture shock that this entailed. Paradoxically and frighteningly this adjustment to a new culture was as nought compared with trying to square the social expectations and opportunities of the UK environment with the overbearing and threatening expectations of the family for their daughter. Threatened violence, elopement and police protection all arose from a culture gap between the generations that was impossible to bridge 

The positive side to Ghazala’s story is that from that troubled start there followed a happy marriage, three children, relative prosperity and the opportunity to express her creativity in ways as varied as running an estate agency business with her husband, studying  Sports Science at Bangor University, the formation of the Bollywood Burnout dance and fitness business, running a marketing consultancy, love of saxophone music, becoming  a No1 Self Published Author of her  book called ‘Loved.Lived.Lost’ and, of late, blossoming as a professional motivational speaker. 

Ghazala’s credo is “Choices – we all have them” and it is significant that throughout her talk there was never a scintilla of doubt, dismay or fear in her outlook on life 

Her friend Rtn. Sarah Kennedy-Ratcliffe, herself a social entrepreneur, gave the vote of thanks