Having the opportunity to collaborate and be a part of the Social Enterprise ODARA was a wonderful experience. The project works with marginalised women in and around the Birmingham area and the CEO Aysha Iqbal, alongside her sister, works tirelessly to provide a safe haven for its members. Entering the project, my position as a consultant on the referral and mentoring process within the business was more rewarding, yet challenging, than I had initially anticipated.
I genuinely enjoyed having the chance to tour the ODARA facilities and understand the extent of what the social enterprise is aiming to cultivate; within which we as a group began to see opportunities for us to make a difference. Potentially the most challenging aspect of the work was communication, both as a team and with Aysha. As a group we all had conflicting schedules which had to be taken into consideration. With Aysha, who is a businesswoman, CEO, mentor, mother, sister (and a million other titles) having the chance to sit down and have face-to-face meetings, taking into account our own schedules, was a daunting task. Thankfully, we as a group are a resourceful group of women who were able to anticipate what we could do to help Aysha on her journey.
Learning from this experience is not necessarily something I had entered it thinking would happen, but it proved to be a huge learning curve which I feel has only bettered by abilities to work as a member of a team and as an individual. Key to this, I believe, is that our working with a rapidly expanding social enterprise in real-time meant that we had to adjust our timings and attitudes to get deadlines for our work. While not something I had anticipated, I feel that this gave me a real sense of what working life post-university will reflect.