My role as a leader is to empower and educate workers to ensure safe working conditions, promote rights at work, and engage with relevant national and international stakeholder institutions to promote social dialogue. The trade union movement in the Maldives is very young and vibrant, and it was a transformative journey for a person to play an integral role as a leader. Our main work was around campaigning and lobbying to relevant government agencies and institutions to enact an Industrial Relations (IR) Act and an Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH), which are in line with the international labour standards. My few years as a leader of the trade union movement in the Maldives have been a transformative journey, both professionally and personally. The first minimum wage in the Maldives is a significant milestone for the labour movement, and I am glad that I was able to play a crucial role in the fixing of the minimum wage as a board member on the Minimum Wage Advisory Board. I was privileged to be brought up by a father who believed that the girl child should be provided with equal access to education and build an identity of her own. Hence, growing up, I was given all opportunities and choices of study and career. Furthermore, because I was born during a period when the Maldives government regarded education as a basic human right, there was no difference in my opportunities for growth and education as a girl. The main challenge is to navigate personal life, professional work, and the volunteer role as a trade union leader. The magnitude of the burden is reduced because I am blessed to have a very supportive partner and a caretaker for my children. Male peers and colleagues with whom I work in the trade union movement have been a huge support for my leadership development. 

Hamsha Hussain is a driven and passionate climate advocate and co-founder of Zero Waste Maldives, a non-government organisation aiming to promote a ‘Zero Waste Low Impact Lifestyle in the Maldives’ with a vision to eliminate waste in our environment through education and awareness, provision of alternatives as well as ‘waste to wealth’ programmes. Hamsha is an architect by profession with a keen interest in architectural heritage. She did her Bachelor of Architectural design from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. As a women living in a country facing an existential climate crisis, Hamsha has been exploring solutions to reduce waste. As such, Hamsha has the opportunity to partner with UNFPA on a pilot project that links waste reduction and climate action to female menstrual health – the Cupvert Project. This project has opened up a platform to raise awareness on these issues and introduce sustainable solutions to meet the demands of women and girls. Talking about her professional life, Hamsha says, “I have mostly had positive experiences in my career and have not faced significant challenges due to my gender. However, there have been instances where I have felt excluded in male-dominated environments, which can be intimidating. In such situations, I have been lucky to receive valuable advice from my colleagues on how to handle the situation.” Hamsha is an inspiration to many young women and girls. Her work has contributed immensely towards breaking the stigma and creating space for conversations around reproductive health, especially amongst young people, marginalised communities, including persons with disabilities. In 2021, she hosted a webinar on Menstrual Health Day, the first public discussion on menstrual health together with UNFPA and SHE. The same year Hamsha and her team hosted a session for the deaf community, introducing issues of reproductive health and sustainable period products, furthering efforts to expand critical information to everyone and to ensure no one is left behind. She recounts these sessions as some of her proudest achievements. Going back to her academic roots, Hamsha also recollects the time she worked to see the reassembly of Kalhuvakaru Mosque in 2019 as one of the highest achievements of her professional career as an architect. As a women supporting women, especially young women and girls, this is what Hamsha wants to say “It is really easy to lose yourself in something that you are passionate about. But always remember to take care of your physical and mental well-being.”

Dr. Zeba un Naher offers well-developed knowledge of medical science as she is a dedicated medical professional and teacher with Laboratory experience in Biochemistry. To reach this stability took an eventful journey. Since April 2019 She has been working as assistant professor at School of medicine Maldives National University. She is not only one of the first three faculties but also one of the pioneer researchers of school of medicine.  Before that from 2014 she worked as a consultant in biochemistry at the IGMH Department of Laboratory Medicine. She has worked with the Maldivian Red Crescent (MRC) as a volunteer since 2017 to present in various important capacities. As the most important engagement with MRC, she supported information dissemination and contact tracing during the lockdown phase of Covid 19 operations. Her commitment to the operation was remarkable and MRC mentioned “MRC grateful for the service she offered including the translation service as part of the Covid 19 information dissemination operation…. Dr. Zeba Un Naher is an outstanding individual with many admirable qualities. She is well known for her positive attitude.  She is well respected throughout the organization for being the “go-to” person for all migrant health issues, and a resource person with a wide range of knowledge”. Dr. Zeba very recently attached with MMWM also. Her young life is not exceptional than thousands of Bangladeshi Girls' motivation to pursue a career in medicine, obstacles they face in real life, such as arranged marriage and pregnancy, their predisposition to select a limited number of specialties, and circumstances that put them in danger of quitting Dream. But her fortunate dream had a north star to keep her focused on goal. Like other women Dr. Zeba has been trying to break away from norms and standards set by society. Under untold pressure she has to take a job which not maintaining minimum hygiene or ethical policy. Whole life is a story about marching for equal rights and fighting for a rightful place in the world. It was not very easy to keep engaged with the lab full time along with male colleagues with dignity. To get a job in university you should have merit and for better position and to have sustainability in a male dominating society you need to prove that you are not only equal but also better than your male colleague and you have to update with modern technology, she is a survivor of workplace bullying and even pregnancy discrimination. Fewer publications, decreased visibility, diminished recognition, and, most importantly, decreased funding, as well as the exclusion of women from the research team is some of the bitter truth observed by her. Migration of her husband as consultant ophthalmologist led her to leave her 13 years university job and accompany him to keep the family together, to make sure that children will be brought up in harmony and a nice family environment. When she arrived here with a job through an agent came to know that having the same degree MD in clinical Biochemistry, she had been appointed as a  Medical Officer post rather than consultant because the assigned hospital does not have the post for consultant Biochemistry. As a humanitarian worker far from home there was a challenge of balancing her between working hours, family and humanitarian worker, sometimes inclusiveness was in question and working in a crucial way keeping in mind social stigma and stereotype. The method by which Dr. Zeba develops the power and influence over her own life as well as the capacity to overcome the obstacles that still remain bright as daylight in her mind. It started with breaking every day stairs up to the sixth floor with full term pregnancy. Being able to stay awake the whole night so that she can get a quiet time to listen to recorded lectures of the teachers and study from the main book. Not missing any class and practicing to be a good auditory learner when her fellow medical students are discussing. Facing the social stigma, sometimes by the very close one as you are mother no need to be desperate, each day the new challenges made her stronger and develop an attitude. She develops her support system by explaining parents the possible obstacles and the situation she was going through, keeping alive some of her hobby, do not know how but her son became source of joy and inspiration It was not very easy to keep engaged with the lab full time along with male colleagues with dignity. She had to face many difficulties. There were obstacles in every step, though we are telling women empowerment and equality always. She faced male coworker saying that from colleagues that working in the laboratory till night and using the university corridors, roads at that time is not safe for women. Bullied by coworkers as you are trying to keep your dignity and ethics. Sometimes it could threaten your academic career and it is very difficult to come out of that psychological trauma. When she brought out misconduct situation that became harder to handle, she had to take the support of law enforcement agents. Still those days remained as a nightmare. Side by side obstacles and developing herself continued in the name different technical training of Biochemistry Instrument like Dimension –RxL Max, Abbot (AxSym) Analyzer, Stratus CS Dade Behring, Abbott Architect, Immulite, Beckman Coulter -CX9 Molecular biology Instruments like,RT PCR,Biorad HPLC base HBAC analyzer & GENE EXPERT and several quality assurance training including ISO 15189. That was her only goal to make her sound in science and technology, so that her steps will be strong enough not to ripple in the storm of social stigma. In Maldives her journey started in 2014 as an expatriate as well as a woman. Here her clear understanding was that people will accept you if they feel that you are qualified and important for them. She submitted her CV to different private and Gov. Hospital. Finally at then CEO of Igmh Brigadier Farath Saheer and Dr. Milza interviewed me and appointed with condition at Biochemistry lab for one month again started to prove herself. As a Consultant Biochemist, Dr. Zeba's work is commended as meticulous and well-organized, with an admirable ability to meet tight deadlines without compromising the quality of work. Among other things, her work in IGMH's laboratory involved resolving problems through data evaluation and examination before selecting corrective steps, completing reports of findings and after 15 days they replied positively, created a post and appointed me as consultant in Biochemistry. Since April 2019 she has been working as assistant professor at School of medicine Maldives National University. Dr. Zeba is a careful and creative thinker with an eye for details and a devotion to logic, which serve her both in the field of medical sciences and outside it. Dr. Zeba's penetrating mind allows her not only to grasp the basics of our curriculum, but also to formulate highly original and persuasive arguments. She is important part of SM research team. To break the confounding bias of conventional teaching to contemporary teaching learning method and student center method she stress her knowledge and technical skill and for that she went through series of workshop and training, some of them are as follows: Training on Designing problem Based Learning Packages Curriculum Overview and special study module implementation and research skills Quality assurance and accreditation of the medical Programme Workshop on medical education training for the teacher organized by World Health Organize (WHO) And center for medical education Bangladesh and much more Still she continue to develop herself as she believed on becoming scholar from personal advancement and also her own teaching . Dr. Zeba is to be commended for her professionalism, concern for her students, and quality of instruction. She is working from the very first batch of school of medicine. I find her uniquely resourceful and adaptive to the methods of teaching. Research work led her to 16 national and international scientific papers. She was awarded The Maldives National University (MNU) Research Grants 1.Association between Iron Status and Thyroid Function, 2019 to 2021 as co-investigator. 2.MTHFR gene C677T polymorphism and its association with folate, homocysteine, infertility, and risk of coronary heart disease pre-folic acid fortification era in female staff attending MNU, as principal investigator. Dr. Zeba has consistently made a substantial contribution to improving staff development and laboratory productivity. Working as a key focal point Dr. Zeba was instrumental in introducing new parameters to the laboratory through the Total Laboratory Automation project. As the most recent engagement with Maldivian Red Crescent, Dr. Zeba un Naher supported information dissemination and contact tracing during the lockdown phase of Covid 19 operations. Her commitment to the operation was remarkable and we are grateful for the service she offered including the translation service as part of the Covid 19 information dissemination operation. In addition to her contributions as a valuable member of the Migrant Advisory Committee,  Dr. Zeba un Naher has also provided her technical expertise to the development of MRC’s strategic Plan 2019-2030. As a result of her active engagement, MRC Strategic Plan 2019-2030 was finalized and adopted at the 10th MRC General Assembly in 2019 with migrant workers identified as a key target group. She is constantly working to strengthen her sense of self-worth, her ability to make and exercise choices, her access to opportunities and resources, her right to have power over her own lives, both inside and outside the home. From her life Dr. Zeba knows empathy is necessary, more than equality, equity is important and above all one should have the determination and inner strength to fight against any type of obstacles. her capacity to shape social change in order to establish a more just social and economic order on a national and international scale sometimes through teaching the youth, sometimes through contribution towards the society by giving time in various humanitarian work. What She discovered is that by taking small steps toward a very distant goal, one can start to advance more quickly, in that way opportunities outlook unfolds.

Working in the Information Technology Industry of the Maldives since 2010, Aroosha Abdul Sattar (Aru) can be described in many words but can be summarized as a truly resilient woman who has independently built herself from the ground up. Though she stands tall in the IT field today, she certainly did have her fair share of curveballs thrown her way. For International Women’s Day 2023, WHO sat down with Aru; a proud single mother, a female leader in ICT, an educator, and a cancer survivor. Back in the day, a comprehensive education system did not exist for young children growing up in the small island nation of Maldives that supported nor prepared students to join the IT workforce. “When I was younger, I did have interest towards IT as an area of work. However, there weren’t many job opportunities at all because technology wasn’t advanced and evolved like it has now. In fact, it was only after I studied abroad on a scholarship that I learned the scope of this work and how huge it was.” Aru recalled. “I was fortunate to have a computer and a dial up connection to access the internet from home. This is where I learned to use a computer; at home, during computer class at school and in the library. I eventually started to access the internet from cyber-cafes because it was too costly to keep a dial-up connection at home.” Before her education in IT even began, she had already taught herself critical thinking and problem-solving skills and to trouble shoot, clear viruses, repair and assemble personal computers. Eventually when she moved overseas to get a formal education, she additionally decided to enroll herself in graphic designing, 3D animation and other skill-based courses which led her to work in a 3D Studio overseas and do freelance graphic designing work. “Even when I gained the initial knowledge and skillset, I was not sure which career to pursue in Maldives because of the lack of opportunities, especially for women in ICT. The industry as we knew it was more male-dominated, and the highest attainable IT-related Government job position was ‘IT Technician’ - not exactly an area of work where women were sought after.” Aru explained. “These are some challenges that exist then and now too. If there had been more opportunities such as internships to help prepare school graduates to integrate themselves into the corporate IT world, it’ll provide them with a clearer pathway.” Never in her life had it been easy for her to sit sedentary in one place and work. She was more interested in work that required her to get up and move, such as building hardware. Despite her proven expertise in the field, she did hear the occasional diss from co-workers that this was a ‘labor-intensive work which is not suited for a woman’, especially with Aru raising a child alone, while studying, working and providing for the child. “If you have passion towards doing something, you’ll find a way to do it.” Aru shared, “When I worked primarily as a graphic designer and web developer, I also tried to tap into the work my male counterparts oversaw such as setting up networking systems. They did allow me to take part in the work to some extent, but not as much I would’ve wanted, and definitely not as much as a male counterpart had the chance to.”

Today, Aru holds a master’s degree. But even in her earlier work settings, since she didn’t always get a chance to do certain work, which she believes hindered her from growing professionally. “What one studies or observes in a classroom versus real life experiences are completely different.”. In fact, from the beginning of her career till 2022, Aru had been the only female in the ICT departments of workplaces she had worked in. It was only from years 2022 to 2023 when she was able to work with more females in a team. “Unfortunately, still, some people’s mindsets are that women cannot work in IT related fields due to their perceived notion of gender roles (such as being a wife, a mother etc.). IT work can also lead both men and women to follow careers which allow remote-working; especially in bigger companies.” said Aru. “Challenges can happen to anyone whether they are female or male. But when it comes to women and the challenges we face; we are often misconstrued, scrutinized, and seen as a burden. On the plus side, Maldives is much more digitally advanced now compared to the early 2000s. And in comparison, to about four, five years earlier; there are a lot more opportunities for women in IT now.” Ever since she first joined the IT field, she has always been a single parent who has gotten by with a lot of support from her family, colleagues and loved ones. “My sister has been an inspiration for me because she is a very independent woman. No one knows how life can turn out for any of us but becoming independent and being mentally prepared to face any challenge is important and my family, friends and colleagues have supported me to view life from this perspective.”

Aru’s world turned upside down when she was recently diagnosed with Cancer. “I got a lot of support from my workplace, Bank of Maldives. And despite this huge setback, I requested the management to allow me to work, and they complied. Battling with cancer, a lot of my time and energy went into treatment. To fight cancer, I had to stop everything else because my only priority was to stay alive. Still the management at Bank of Maldives gave me a lot of flexibility to work remotely and in my own time. This was a huge blessing for me, one that does not go unacknowledged or unappreciated. Even when I was receiving treatment abroad, I was working from home, and I am so thankful that I get to work at such an accommodating, caring workplace.” She also took note that people and corporations are much more aware and educated on women’s rights issues nowadays and a lot more competition exists in the field now because organizations prioritize hiring women to ensure a gender balanced workplace and to support women’s empowerment And yet till this day, Aru continues to come across young girls who see IT as a complicated line of work. During her time as a lecturer and a mentor, she has advocated to young girls and encouraged them to work in this field because she believes it is an area of work where people can have a lot of flexibility despite their health or socioeconomic status. “In 2018 I was introduced to the NGO ‘Women in Tech Maldives’ where I met like-minded professionals. We got to share our experiences and challenges. I acknowledge ‘Women in Tech Maldives’ as they played a huge role in advancing opportunities for women in the ICT field. Networking events were unheard of before, but with credit to them; there are more opportunities for women in this field to meet, mingle and receive mentorship from technically-sound professionals.” In recent years, Aru became the Chief Operating Officer of a startup tech company working alongside experienced professionals in the industry. Aru shared that the team’s proudest achievement thus far was building an artificial intelligence application together as a team. By digitally profiling people, the application can provide guidance, recommendations, and coaching to its users based on their strengths, weaknesses, and unique attributes. “It is a highly adaptable tool and a technology that has not existed in the Maldives before. I am also someone who did not know my own strengths and weaknesses and didn’t get any guidance on which area of work to pursue so with the power of technology these things can also be simplified in today’s world.” Aru shared proudly. When asked about her thoughts on adapting and harnessing digital technologies to Health which is a global priority for WHO, she shared that the possibilities for digitalizing the health sector of Maldives were endless especially with today’s advancements and opportunities. “There are so many possibilities; reports and prescriptions no longer need be paper-based. Digital technologies can be utilized for e-health, telemedicine, and to keep databases (such as health and vaccine records). The digital utilization during COVID-19 is a good example. However, as I see it, there are many more tools available and we also have a skilled workforce who are fluent in IT. The demand and usability will also be high as health services aren’t limited to one patient demographic or nationality, but also can be used by health workers and other multisectoral partners too.” In her career, Aru has mentored young girls she met during ICT events and has also taught basic computer courses to non-tech savvy older adults from different cities and islands of Maldives. Additionally, when she spent time teaching students as a lecturer, she guided them to choose this career path when many of them were still unsure what field they wanted to pursue. “When I see them advancing in their careers now, I feel like it’s my own personal achievement too.” On the occasion of Women’s Day, Aru wants to remind all young women and girls in ICT, STEM, and other fields of work to remain keen, curious and self-educated. “In life, women do have to face a lot more challenges than the opposite sex. This is not just in work, but also in our biology. So, despite the curveballs, always keep your head above the water no matter what field you decide to pursue. Don’t let the momentum slip and always be one step ahead of yourself. Despite having cancer, I never abandoned my passion for IT, and I never stopped believing in myself. My advice is, don’t give up on yourself even if the situation changes for you. Every workplace has challenges but take them as learning opportunities.”

Aru believes that in the digital era we currently live in, a lot of things come at ease. “I believe comfort zones are our enemy so always stay outside of it. As young people, we should strive to be an expert in the niche that we have started to work in, so that no one can reject us. At the end of the day, they need our talent and expertise more than they need a woman or man to do the job.”