“When We Are In A Position Of Privilege, We Need To Help Others”
Georgia Brooks is a passionate advocate for women’s rights working for greater gender equality and inclusion. She’s talking to us about her non-profit organization, Fempower.
When Georgia talks, it’s with conviction about what she’s trying to accomplish, and tremendous hopes for what will happen. In front of her flower wall, she’s funny, sharp, and joyful.
Georgia Brooks is Founder & Managing Director at Fempower Initiative, a Brussels-based non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of girls and young women living in disadvantaged areas in the Middle East.
Her journey to human rights
With a Lebanese mother born in Egypt and an English father, she grew up between the UK and Canada, “not really fitting anywhere”: “I wasn’t English enough in England, and wasn’t Egyptian enough in Egypt. It’s a strange position to be in, which I think ultimately made me highly adaptable, so I can pretty much go anywhere, do anything” Georgia reflects.
Leaving a legal journalist career in London behind, she moved to Brussels 5 years ago to be with her now-husband and three teenage step-daughters, whom she adores. She first started working for a couple of NGOs, for research and editing, but soon found herself disillusioned.
“I am a woman of action, I need to DO something, and sometimes it felt like there was not enough action. The conversation between human rights aid and finance is very heavy here, a lot tide up with trade and politics, I was so fed up, so I said screw it, I will do it myself”.
She managed to raise funds from family and friends to set up Fempower, to be able to work with the organizations directly, support them financially, “support them in any way I can, from here, from the UE”.
Now she’s working with two organizations in Egypt and Lebanon for health and education projects for women.
“It’s on a pretty small scale. But I’m already so proud. For example, the education class that we run for refugees in Lebanon: almost a thousand women now, in a year, have gone to that school. When I got these numbers I was really amazed. I said to my husband “what did YOU do today?” she laughs. “It’s really heartening. It’s such a small thing but you can make such a difference to someone’s life”.
Fempower and the Middle East
“It’s like we are standing on concrete and they are standing on quicksand. We have to acknowledge that. I always felt that when we are in a position of privilege, of power, of opportunity, we need to help others.”
Georgia talks about her journey towards non-profit with ease. “I’ve always wanted to work at least ON the Middle East, maybe not IN the Middle East because I am a woman, and I look like a white woman most of the time so, it’s hard …”
She started Fempower as a way to take action, to create a change. When asked about her goals and dreams for the organization, Georgia thinks big: “I really want girls and young women to feel like they have an opportunity. I want them to feel safe, I want them to feel healthy, I want them to feel happy.”
“The challenges that women face in the Middle East are the same challenges that we face here, it’s universal, we all want the same thing. But of course, there, the social-cultural economic foundations are very different than here. It’s like we are standing on concrete and they are standing on quicksand. We have to acknowledge that. I’ve always felt that when we are in a position of privilege, of power, of opportunity, we need to help others.”
It’s just amazing, how you can break the circle, with relatively little
She confesses that the hardest part of her job is listening to the stories. “You have to have a really think skin and have to be able to compartmentalize” she explains. “The hardest part of my job is when the school tells me, we had a bomb throw through the window today. One of the brothers of a girl who was receiving an education. I don’t even blame the boy so much … he had been brought up thinking that because he’s a boy he had a lot of opportunities, and that he had an advantage over his sister. Now, she gets to go out three times a week to a class. She gets to go away, she’s with other girls and she learns, and he can’t do it.”
But listening to stories like that every day, to little girls of 13 explainings how they are pressured into marriage, to a girl who proudly explains that the classes are what gave her the courage to stand up to her father who was beating her … “It takes a lot not to take that inside, not to carry that with you. But how amazing is it that just going to a class three times a week for a few hours, how that made her feel, how that empowered her. This is such a small change, but it is such a big change in her life. It’s just amazing, how you can break the circle, with relatively little”.
Her vision for the future
But Georgia doesn’t plan on stopping there. She’s thinking big, and she wants to work on other fronts as well, maybe a bit more local, always with an all integrated perspective.
“I’m launching a new business in Brussels. I’m setting up the first private member club for women. I’ve been working on this for two years”. “The Nine” will be a London style clubhouse, in a beautiful 4 stories townhouse with a garden, now still in the renovation process. It should open in March, and Georgia is “hoping to bring a little bit of life to Brussels” with it. Men will be allowed, as guests.
“It’s a very serious city, everyone is here on very serious matters. So it appeals to both the business and social side. And I hope that it will also be a great springboard for fundraising activities. I would love to be able to support Fempower but also to work with other organizations in Brussels that work with women.”
Ask questions and be brave
Finally, when asked if she had advice to give, to all of us out there who are trying to start something new, to reach for our goals, she says “Ask questions and be brave. I didn’t ask enough questions when I was younger, I really took things for granted and I accepted a lot of what was happening around me, both personally and professionally. Be a little bit bolder and do not be afraid.”
