Episode 10: Funding a Feminist Future
Rita Thapa has over 35 years of experience as a feminist educator and a community activist in Nepal and internationally. She is the founder of Tewa, the innovative philanthropic Nepal women's fund, and Nagarik Aawaz, a NGO engaged in conflict transformation and peace-building in Nepal. She's also the former Chair of the Executive Board of the Global Fund for Women and former Vice Chair of the Executive Board of the Urgent Action Fund. She currently serves as Chair of the Executive Board of the Global Fund for Community Foundations. Rita was named an Ashoka Fellow in 1998 and was included in the 1000 Women for Peace nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. She joins us from Kathmandu, Nepal.
She speaks to us about:
overcoming aid dependency in Nepal
an alternative model of fundraising and grant-making
dismantling hierarchies in work cultures
fostering community ownership
challenging patriarchy, caste and class divisions
politics of development
regional feminist solidarity - and much more!
Transcript
Intro: I went through several aid agencies very quickly, and I saw the whole gamut of bilateral aid, bilateral agencies, multilateral in terms of the UN and then some really supposed-to-be-good INGOs. And I just felt the structures were very, very flawed and came to a conclusion that you cannot really do good work from flawed structures. And so Tewa emerged out of that.
Safa: Welcome back to The Rethinking Development Podcast. My name is Safa, and I'm your host. Thank you for tuning in to a series of episodes where we speak with activists, academics, artists and writers to contextualize international development and humanitarian aid within broader historical and global power dynamics and socioeconomic systems that have been shaped and reshaped over time. In our conversations, we aim to rethink ethical behavior and best practices through the lived experiences and personal reflections of different guests. Our guest today is Rita Thapa. Rita is the founder of Tewa, the innovative philanthropic Nepal women's fund, and Nagarik Aawaz, an NGO engaged in conflict transformation and peace-building. Rita has over 35 years of experience as a feminist educator and a community activist in Nepal and internationally. She's also the former Chair of the Executive Board of the Global Fund for Women and former Vice Chair of the Executive Board of the Urgent Action Fund. She currently serves as Chair of the Executive Board of the Global Fund for Community Foundations. Rita was named an Ashoka Fellow in 1998, was Dame Nita Barrow distinguished visitor at the University of Toronto in 2002, and in 2005 she was included in the 1000 Women for Peace nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. Rita, thank you so much for speaking with us today.
Rita: You're welcome, Safa.
Safa: It's wonderful to have you. Thank you. To begin with, maybe you could just share a bit with us about your background or your upbringing, or what led you to become a feminist activist and want to work in community development?
Rita: Yes, so I can begin by saying that being born in Nepal, in Kathmandu actually, which is the capital city and lived all my life here. I, having been born a woman in a Hindu, patriarchal, but a fairly privileged family - I didn't really understand the gendered politics until much later when I got married quite early, when I was 18, and in a very powerfully political, patriarchal family. And I began to identify that those discriminations, very subtle, did exist early on, because there were very defined roles for women and for men. And therefore how ever much privilege you came into, there were still subtle things like you can't ride a bicycle, you can't ride a horse, you can't go out on the streets by yourself, and things like that, rules that didn’t apply to men and boys. And then later on, when I was in this married household, a joint family, I learned so much more about the dynamics, gender dynamics especially - but then my husband died some 17 years after marriage, and I had three children. So a Hindu widow, and, you know, I needed to work for money. And luckily, in Nepal, at that time, people offered me jobs with the aid agencies. And I just had to take up a job. So it was very convenient. And I moved into the development world. So I worked with several aid agencies, Canadians, the Germans, Oxfam and the UN Women, at that time called UNIFEM.
Safa: Mm hmm. So you mentioned that you worked with a variety of agencies, aid agencies. Could you tell us a bit about what you observed in those experiences or what were some of the ethical issues you faced that actually made you question the work they were doing and want to establish Tewa as an alternative?
Rita: Yes. So, I think that's the thing. You know, in my first job with the Canadians, I quit after nine months, and I was lucky to again be offered another job very quickly. But I just - I went with a very fresh eye and no training as such into this role, other than my own activism from early on in the field of women, because wherever I identified gaps for women, I tried to fill that in. And then when I left, not only did I leave, but all the four key staffs left because I said: you guys are going to just - I mean, this is not the kind of development that we all need to be doing. Because the hierarchies are so big, and there is no communication. But this, you need to understand, was about 30 plus years back. So what I saw was - I mean, to give you an example, the Canada Fund, I was overseeing the Women's Initiative Fund, but the Canada Fund needed to be passed by a board in Delhi, where the High Commission is - I mean, the immigration officer and all these kind of people were staying around the table and asking, so how is it like safe drinking water? They had no idea of the context where this proposal was written in, in rural Nepal. They had no thinking that somebody who's working for the same organization will do their best to ensure that all those questions are met and that we are confident, as program people recruited by the Canadian agency, to take the proposal... so I said: there's no trust. And with such a lack of trust, and such established hierarchies that are never going to be broken through, it's not going to work for me.
Safa: And you also mentioned that there was a kind of a culture of aid dependency, which is something that Tewa challenged.
Rita: Yes, that's the other thing in Nepal. Nepal was going through its own huge political... since 1951, Nepal opened to the outer world for the first time. And the aid agencies came here; it was a haven. And I think early on in 1954, or so, I'm not quite sure about that, but the foreign aid was a big thing here. On top of that, we had many political transitions. And the whole machinery eventually became very politicized as well, which means .... the Nepali politicians used that also, as a way to build their constituencies - not directly, but through their henchmen, I can say. So you know, with all the nepotism and all the sycophancy and old, traditional culture that was just opening up and being really new to this whole thing, not having enough transitional plannings. But where power and attaining power was the key among the politicians. So you know, we went through many, many transitions, followed by the 10 year long conflict and the post-transition period, -we've gone through some very, very rapid transitions in a very short span of time.
Safa: Mm hmm. Right. And in that context, you eventually had this idea and this vision for Tewa. Can you share how did you come up with the idea and what was the initial kind of vision that you had for the work that Tewa could do?
Rita: So I went through several aid agencies very quickly, and I saw the whole gamut of bilateral aid, bilateral agencies, multilateral in terms of the UN and then some really supposed-to-be-good INGOs, like Oxfam, for instance. And I just felt the structures were very, very flawed, and came to a conclusion that you cannot really do good work from flawed structures. But the other side of it was that because Nepal was going through all these transitions, political transitions as well, women were really emerging out into the outside domain or the political/ economic domain. And women had no access to resources, although development aid at the time intended women to have access to those monies. But because you know, they couldn't write a proposal in English, the donors didn't go down that far to the rural areas in those days - so women had very little access to support. And I felt it was really important to help them stay organized so that they could gain more political visibility and voice. And so Tewa emerged out of that. And the other thing that was really affecting me was that through my own experience of being widowed, I needed to observe annual death rituals for my husband. But after the second year, I did nothing of the sort, because for the first year, I was in a whole year of mourning, traditional mourning, which means really staying housebound, eating pure food and all the likes of it. But after that, I decided I wouldn't do anything because I was working, I wouldn't have the time to engage with my own intimate community of family And so when I didn't do that, it made me think, oh my goodness - I mean, we had so much philanthropy that was structured within the religious and the cultural practices. And if I was not doing that, there were a lot of people who also were beginning to be - you know, the whole urbanization and modernization process was taking place throughout the world, but certainly in Nepal as well at that time , wouldn't allow for us to practice traditional forms of philanthropy, through religious and cultural giving. So where are we giving back to the community? So I felt that I needed to practice this myself, and ensure that we just didn't get sucked into consumeristic lifestyles, but that we practiced it in a scenario where we could actually contribute to the environment, to women, or to education or to health. So that's how Tewa was born. I was on the board of the Global Fund for Women. I was very influenced also by women there, who were philanthropists, and who had that equity and justice very big on their minds and their hands. So it was very easy for me, because that's exactly how I was experiencing my life as well. And so it was a natural segue for me to found Tewa.
Safa: So Tewa uses this kind of alternative financial model, which involves fundraising from local community members, local actors. Could you speak to that strategy? And maybe also, what were some of the challenges that you faced in terms of fundraising, especially maybe in the early years?
Rita: Yes, absolutely Safa. Because I think one thing I need to mention is that for a Hindu widow, as Nepal kept deteriorating in terms of political stability, and therefore economically, it was a very big thing that I chose to quit my job with UNIFEM at that time, after working there for years, and do Tewa. But I was also thinking of running away from the country and so had applied to the Massey University because just being widowed and living in Kathmandu at that time wasn't the easiest thing. And you know, so I had, as you would see, these "ladoos" in both hands, but I was speaking at a panel in Beijing and talking on funding our future and as I was putting my thoughts together for this talk, the idea of Tewa, I conceived it. And as soon as I came back I called my supervisor, the regional advisor for UNIFEM, who was based in New Delhi at that time and said that I would leave my job. So I wanted to establish Tewa in a way whereby everything that I saw that was not really right, when I was working with these gamut of aid agencies - so structurally, for instance, like it's a very convoluted environment, even now. I ensured that our salaries aligned with government salaries, for instance. So that didn't mean that you might get the best of people, which were really little at that time. I remember the first Program Officer I recruited, we paid him $100 a month, because that is what the Section Officer got. And you know, we ate together - so also, class, caste, diversity issues were very, very big here. Eating together, sitting together, I invested a lot of time and energy in team building, in levelling the field, let me say, right at the beginning, so that we could get all together, you know, that we could end up being a team, that we could all own it in the same way. And I think just the practices of transparency, accountability, respectful behaviour - because our grantees who came from rural Nepal, we sat on the floor, we put floor cushions, we didn't have any furniture. I mean, there are so many stories, but like, for instance, Ford Foundation, who got to know of us and came to support us, looked at my offices and said, you know, you need a better office, and maybe we can give you a car. I said no way. I mean, we have to deal every day with our grantees and all kinds of partners, so we do it this way. And then yes, like you said, we have many, many, many individual Nepali donors - primarily individual Nepali donors, starting with ourselves. I think even now, everyone in Tewa is a donor, the staff included. And so you know, all these things set the tone. And I think that kind of consistent behaviour - it's about building trust and ownership. I think primarily, it's about building trust and ownership.
Safa: Yes, very important. So you speak about kind of overcoming any possible hierarchies within your own staff, within your own group, but also in relationship to your grantees and the communities you are working in.
Rita: Absolutely.
Safa: I was just thinking, you know, how in the whole ecosystem of community development work, there are different stakeholders. For example, you have local NGOs, but you have government counterparts, you have private sector people, you have international partners. In your work, a lot of times you've focused on working directly with civil society, community groups, grassroots partners, can you speak to some of the ways in which you kind of were able to create partnerships that were more lateral, with organizations that you were working with in partnership?
Rita: Yes, Safa, the kind of politics within development aid here - I chose not to take money from aid agencies here for Tewa. Because I didn't want to waste the time, which I knew I would have to, in writing proposals. I wanted to make a leadership transition, actually, within five years, and I did it in five years nine months straight - which is still a record time for getting everything going. Foreign agencies, developmental aid agencies here, I didn't really interact with them. How I was able to do this was for grant making -we raised every penny from within Nepal, and we give every penny of that to the grantee groups. So what we raised we gave. But for running the organization, we were very frugal in those days, we drank only black tea, we cooked a little meal of simple Nepali food and we eat all together in the office. But still the running costs - I worked voluntarily for the initial years. And those monies came to us from the feminist funds and feminist philanthropists. So because of that, I didn't have to worry about how I was going to run the organization. But working with local partners, we already, yes, worked with, not aid agencies, but with the local community organizations. And in relation to that, Nepal was still centrally controlled; a central government - but still with related government agencies - but because of the organizations we supported, funded, we did need to work with them sometimes and be in communication. And that was okay, because we invested a good deal of time into having good communication, although in those days, the smartphone or emails that was not very... - but you know, using phones or just making visits, when we went for monitoring visits, we would go and meet the Chief District Officer as well. So in this way, the little that we needed to interact with them was fine. Today, I know Tewa works much more closely with the local governments wherever they are established.
Safa: You mentioned that you had made this conscious choice to transition out of the leadership at Tewa, even though you are the founder. Could you speak to that choice and why that was very important to you?
Rita: Yes, Safa. Because from my experience in Nepal, maybe it's in many places still the same - the founders are very loath to leave the organizations. But I think there isn't enough investment on second line leadership. And I was absolutely clear that I want to, and I have to - I built everything around it. And luckily, I was able to put an endowment in place and build that much ownership and trust for the work, because everything was very transparent. I didn't have my nieces and nephews and children work for the organization in anyway. So you know, everybody could ‘own’ it. So I think that was very useful in being able to make that transition, it was really important. Otherwise, it couldn't be widely owned, if I was always there.
Safa: So even structurally, the ideas of community ownership and transparency and working together that's reflected in the way that the organization is created and structured.
Rita: Yes, throughout and I'm so pleased about that. Tewa is now finishing its 25th year, this year. And it continues to be so and I think today, it makes grants in 70 out of 77 districts; some of which are really very high mountainous areas, where women's organization are more entrepreneurial, like in the Everest region. So you know, it's a whole different story. But it almost makes grants throughout Nepal, and it's very well known, and I think respected as far as I know. So it's because of that.
Safa: That's wonderful. So you've also written a bit about how your Buddhist practice has supported you in your your work. Could you share a bit about how that has helped you throughout your work, maybe overcoming any of the challenges you face or just keeping your motivation going?
Rita: Thank you Safa. That's a very interesting question. And one that is very dear to my heart and I’m always eager to share about them. And yes, so I'm a born Hindu, I was born in a Hindu family. But when my husband died, and especially two years after - when he died, I was in shock because he died suddenly and then I jumped straight into work. So I didn't have much processing. And I had three children. So it was a lot. But when my mother-in-law died two years after he did, all the traditional practices, rituals that came with it, I just couldn't take it, and I felt it was very wrong. Like widows can only wear yellow tikka, can only wear dull colors, not red, nothing vibrant. And you know, those kinds of things. So everything was so discriminatory in that, and I had this big spiritual search - luckily, a friend who was a Buddhist practitioner, very well known, he connected me, he took me to my teacher _________, for the first time, and I was totally zapped, because although I was born in Kathmandu, I had never been to the monastery. I didn't know what they were. And you know, but I felt when he gave me a blessing, my friend just said, you know, she's gone through some tragedies recently and she'd like a blessing - I didn't feel much at the time, I was just so stoned, kind of by everything there. But after a few days, I felt that the knot that had formed in my stomach just dissipated, and I felt light. And I connected that with the blessing I received. And so I just felt I had come home, I went back, I took refuge, and Buddhism, although I hardly understood it, I was already 35, 36 at that time, but the teachings of compassion and ego cutting were of great help to me, because on one hand, as you keep achieving things - you know, it was really breaking new ground with Tewa in Nepal, everybody said you can't do it, and I took a huge plunge - so doing something like that can make you feel pretty big, and it's very, very important to ground yourself. And I think those teachings, both of being compassionate, practicing compassion, and also of ego cutting, have been my life long, I think, the most valuable lessons that I've learned.
Safa: Mm hmm. Thank you for sharing that. Wonderful. You've done so many things from an early age in terms of challenging hierarchies, challenging patriarchy, questioning the different ways in which gender dynamics, caste dynamics, class dynamics play out. Was there a particular moment or particular teaching where you thought, okay, like, now I'm a feminist or now I'm committing myself to this work? Or was this just something that you just were always doing in a way without really labeling it as "oh, this is a feminist commitment, or I'm a feminist?
Rita: Yeah, I think it was early on, when I was at Oxfam, I remember this famous feminist, Kamla Bhasin, South Asian feminist, she's from India, she was running a thematic workshop. And she asked us a question, "who of you are feminists?" and among all these men and women, who were all feminists, I would say, like out of 25, hardly six of us raised our hands. And I was one of them. And I don't know why. I just always felt, you know, I've seen the gaps, I know discriminations lie even in most privileged places, because of women's stereotypical roles and multiple roles, and we need to change that. So I would do whatever I could, from my small, you know, capabilities, areas, and therefore I considered myself one - I’m doing something to change that, to make us more equitable and therefore, just, and so I considered myself a feminist very early on, although that word I was not using it earlier, I feel I always was a feminist.
Safa: You mentioned Kamla Bhasin, and we had the pleasure to speak with her on the podcast last year. How has that type of regional feminist solidarity or that community, that network, those kind of relationships and friendships, how have they supported you or impacted your work or your life?
Rita: Absolutely. That's our life line, I would say collectively, because it's so difficult to find people who think alike, and who are committed to change year after year after year. Kamla has been such a force in paving the path for us and in standing so strong and tall on that path, uniting the entire South Asia region. I mean, not just she, but so many others with her, many of them are very, very dear friends in all these countries. So interestingly, Safa, Nepal has never been colonized. So our history and even my history is very different from that. I've never been a party political activist. I mean, I don't cater to one or the other political ideology. But I think the ideology of justice and equity and you know, all the more humane sort of - I catered to that. But Kamla and all have worked together in many different ways. But what they have gathered, the knowledge that has been gathered in the region, and all the amazing work that many of my colleagues in the South Asian region have done has been very inspiring, because when you are on this path, you are sort of alone, and often you're ostracized within your own communities, because you are so ‘ridiculous’ - in my class, I shouldn't have done the work I did. I wouldn't have to; I could have just stayed a privileged socialite, I don't know what you call them. And I think when you do that, you pretty much are alone. And I think if you have these sort of networks and these people you can be inspired from, that keeps your fire burning. So yes, very, very valuable.
Safa: Yes, absolutely. So after your time with Tewa, you also founded the NGO Nagarik Aawaz with the intention of doing peace-building work in the context of conflict in Nepal between the government and Maoist insurgents. Could you tell us why you felt compelled to do that work and work with victims of violence, especially women?
Rita: Oh dear Safa, it goes on, you know. If you live in Nepal, you can't help it, I guess - but the more important thing is like with your spiritual practice, the path is the most important thing, I have learned, and therefore when doing Tewa, I was saying: Oh, good Rita, you did it; here is your time, you need a little rest, because you're a burned out activist, you've really achieved all that you said you would and more. And I was thinking that I needed a break. And I had one of the biggest lessons of my life again, because even just during my formal day of transition, when the handing over was not even over, and the Palace Massacre happened. And violence just escalated. And I knew the women would suffer additionally and differently. I mean, that's easy to understand, just simple logic. And I just couldn't wait and watch the whole house burning. So I jumped into founding another organization, I pulled together a group of people and I thought somebody else would take the leadership, but you know, nobody was ready and also working in conflict is a very risky thing. It has security hazards, as you would know. So you know, I had to sort of jump in to it - but then I learned this whole other dimension of doing peace-building work and for that I'm grateful to.
Safa: Could you tell us about maybe some of the goals of that work and how it was to kind of negotiate and be involved in a kind of very political or tense environment?
Rita: So development work I understood, I had done a great deal, I had learned something, I studied a little bit of development and gender in Sussex University. Most of us in development work, I saw, we equate what we do with jobs. I mean, jobs is secondary, it is the work - you're trying to change people's lives for better. And oh my god, that's a very big responsibility, and to cut across class, caste, hierarchies, all kinds of barriers and to really be able to build trust, and to build on assets that exist with people in the local communities. Also, given the North-South dynamics, how you equate everything only in terms of money, where you think that this is a poor country, this is a rich country - I think COVID is unraveling a lot of that now, the way we have defined wealth and richness. And I think those were the kind of things that enabled me to learn along the way. So we began by having forums where all kinds of people came, the Maoists came, and very soon we got to be working with all sides of political parties, the Maoists, not the government so much initially, but keeping that balance, being authentic. I think that was the most - holding the balance and being authentic, and reaching out where help was needed. I think that's what got us learning about the entire peace-building work, and we decided to focus on youth because it's like in Nepali, we have a proverb that says: save seeds in times of famine and in war, I felt we needed to save the youth.
Safa: Somewhere you had mentioned how in times of conflict, times of war, or other kinds of crisis situations are a time where woman's traditional roles have a potential to be overcome or changed. And now, as you said, we're living in the time of the coronavirus pandemic, which is a crisis in itself. It has had so many different impacts, and it is disproportionately impacting women in negative ways. What are your thoughts about, you know, the current time that we live in, especially in relationship to maybe the role of woman?
Rita: Yes, that's a great question, Safa. Because right now, for almost the past two years, I have been very engaged in holding together a group called the Intergenerational Feminist Forum - and even tomorrow, I have a meeting at home, although social distancing and all that is happening here in a big way. But a small group of us are coming together to think about how can we strategize? Because for 25 years and more, we have built organizations, we've mobilized women, some men included, but we have yet to see how we can write about that, because we've been very divided along party political lines, identity politics was played out in a big way during the armed conflict. So along the lines of identity politics, and donor politics, maybe not intentionally, but if you give grants to someone - it's in a very competitive environment that our organizations have been surviving. And if we are now, if we can come beyond that, build trust and care, show love and strengthen ourselves - because the world that's in front of us will be largely led by women, I feel there's no choice. And therefore we have to ensure how women can hold on to their strengths. They are the strongest species, even biologically, it's been proven. So I think that's where we are going to invest now our time and energies, to see how we can provide necessary safety nets across the board, as well as provide the organizing skills that's needed in this new environment.
Safa: Mm hmm. You mentioned this kind of moment we're in, with the rise of polarization in politics and discriminatory policies and all these party policy lines. And I think somewhere you had mentioned that you initially had had an idea of starting kind of a political party yourself, but that there wasn't much support for that idea. When you think about that idea now, what are your thoughts about, you know, what are the I guess the positives of working through political organizing, rather than community organizing, activist organizing, feminist organizing?
Rita: Oh no, no, not me - but many women, my colleagues earlier, many years back, thought they should have a political women's party. That never came to be. But personally, I have never had political interests, because I think political party, political work -- I'm not saying -- it's a wonderful piece of work to be in leadership. But this whole thing about leadership and how leadership is to serve a much larger constituency, and carries with it great responsibility is, I think, something that the world, I don't even want to call them leaders, whoever are in these chairs, throughout the world, with a few exceptions, it is dismal. I mean, it is so sad that there is no respect anymore for that (leadership). However, I mean, anybody who is running a good government, I don't think they need people from their party to do pieces of work, where there are skilled human resource from independent constituencies, and I think they can always access that, but the intention is not that. So it's not a conducive environment and you will be this one person battling against a huge, very faulty structure, and that just will never work.
Safa: You mentioned the Intergenerational Feminist Forum, and coming together amongst women of different ages and different backgrounds. Would you say that over the years, have your motivations changed at all? Or have your thoughts or feelings about this work changed in any way?
Rita: Not at all, but I just feel that now both my organizations are in a good place. I'm very, very lucky - despite Nepal's transitions. I am helping Nagarik Aawaz in building a Peace Center, because Tewa already has a physical space it can be proud of, but I thought I could use the credibility, the trust and the respect that I have now earned in helping pull together - at least I can do my best. And if something works - because these are again, very, very challenging, and very difficult times and things are only going to get much more harder before they can get better. I think over several years, especially in a hugely transitioning country like Nepal, where the the state structure has been like eaten by termites from the inside out over so many years. So, things will be very difficult for us here. And if I can do a little bit along with all my colleagues, I mean, nobody can do this kind of thing alone. But if I can be a little glue, a source of light to hold something together and bring something to fruition that's bigger than ourselves - then again, I will have to be very, very quick to whoever while I'm on this earth.
Safa: Over your career, maybe not just only your work but also in your life, has there been someone or a few people who you would say are some of your biggest teachers in terms of what they shared with you, or maybe just themselves, how they behaved that has stuck with you over the years and that has been a source of inspiration for you?
Rita: I would say that, yes, of course, Safa; all the people who went ahead of me in one or the other way, because each one's context is different, and their paths are different. I learned from everyone, you know, all these teachers all along the way in the women's movement, forerunners - and not just forerunners, you know, those who come behind us too. They are amazing, they sometimes teach us more than we could ever sort of learn ourselves. So I'm extremely inspired by the youth. And the young ones. I mean, Greta Thunberg inspires me to no end, you know. And this Alicia something, this food activist, seven years old, she inspires me, I don't even know where she's from. These kind of people in Nepal too, there's so many - but I think my gurus, my spiritual teachers, just the way they live their life, that's very inspirational, because they give without the asking, and so unconditionally, constantly, to help us. And I feel that in itself is a huge inspiration, the way they live their lives. And then, of course, the life, your path itself becomes your biggest teacher as it unfolds.
Safa: You know, when you shared that it reminded me that when Kamla was on the podcast and we spoke with her, she was sharing about the importance of really living and embodying the values that you believe in and the kind of work that you're trying to do. So I think that really resonates in terms of what you said about embodying the values that you have, every day in your life, in just the way you live, it doesn't have to be in the way you work, also in the way you live.
Rita: Yes, being authentic.
Safa: Yeah. Thank you so much. It's been really a pleasure to speak with you, learn from your experiences. I really appreciate it.
Rita: Thank you very much Safa. Thank you.
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