By Shilpa Shah
Walking from Aldgate East station to The Royal Pharmaceutical Society building I started to feel the energy rise as I knew this afternoon’s RPS International Women's Day event was going to be inspiring. RPS were hosting the event with Pharmacy Business Magazine, GHP, PTOC, APTUK, FPLN, UKBA and BPSA.
The session started with an open from Amandeep Kaur Doll, Director of England at RPS. That in itself felt so inspirational, to have the Director of England a female of colour. In fact, the day after the event it was announced that Tase Oputu, a Black female was going to be the inaugural president of the Royal College of pharmacy. I can't really explain the pride I felt when I heard this news. To have a Black female as the first president really shows how far we've come in terms of diversity.
Abundance Temile, Vice President of UKBPA let us all through a workshop on vision boarding. I love vision boarding; I think it's something that everyone should do at least once a year. It's always good to evaluate where you are now, with respect to different parts of your life and reflect on where you'd like to be. Abundance asked us all a question about where we are now and what we excited about in life. Monica Bernal-Quiroz, Associate Publisher of Pharmacy Business Magazine, shared that she was excited about the upcoming Pharmacy Business Conference on April the 19th.
Before we moved onto the vision board we all spent some time filling out a pie chart on how we currently spend our time. I may have been too particular with this task as I calculated the hours in a week and plotted out exactly how much time I spend sleeping, working, volunteering, cooking and eating, socialising etc I was actually quite surprised to see that I still had 13 hours a week left, which then left me worried. If I'm not doing anything productive with those 13 hours, then am I am I scrolling for 13 hours each week? It wasn't a surprise to see that hardly any of the pie charts had “me time” on them. Something we all need to make an effort to make time for.
The rest of the time was spent on the bit that I liked the most, which was to talk about what our current achievements are and what we wanted our goals to be. I love the bit around current achievements, as we never really spend enough time celebrating our achievements. We shared back with the rest of our table our goals and we made a commitment to hold each other to account.
Sam Quaye, Co-founder of PTOC led a panel titled “Sponsorship in action turning generosity into career mobility”.
Amy Laflin, President of APTUK shared how she wouldn't be here if it wasn't for a Tesco Pharmacist taking her on when she was 16 years old. They were willing to take the risk and take someone on they would have to train and develop.
Hadeel Mohamed Founder of Enigma Mentoring initiative share why she set up Enigma. She felt that she was working hard, always going the extra mile but still being overlooked when it came to promotions. Hadeel wanted someone to take her under their wing and was talking to her sister about it. She asked Hadeel why she didn’t just do it herself, rather than waiting for someone else. At the time Hadeel had a mentor from RPS mentoring, she spoke to them about her idea, he encouraged and supported her and went the extra mile by putting her in touch with people that would be able to help her. This was a huge learning curve for Hadeel, as she has had to network, speak at events and has stretched herself above what she thought she could or would ever do. Getting feedback from mentors that she works with has been so rewarding and inspiring.
Samiha Amin, External Relations Officer BPSA was so impressive as a third year Pharmacy student at the University of East Anglia. I’ve come across lots of students recently and they are so confident and considered when speaking. It really is impressive. Samiha spoke about being a student and how it’s not always clear how students can be involved. Samiha attended a BPSA event which demonstrated to her how she can contribute to policy, webinars and conference. This role has increased her confidence and has really shaped the person that she is today. It's a sacrifice doing all of this on top of her degree, but it feels good to know that she is helping future generations.
The panel guests talked about not trying to do everything yourself. Amy talked about all APTUK roles being voluntary. As President it would be easy to feel that all the responsibility sits with you and you alone, but you must build a team around you. You have to have shared responsibility and have contingency plans in place. You may also need support at home. Samiha talked about burn out and not saying “yes” to everything that comes your way. You can’t be meaningful if you aren’t intentional. Hadeel mentioned the important of not trying to do it all yourself. Reach out to your support networks. Women supporting women is great but let’s not forget our male allies.
The best question asked by Sam was “Who is the most inspirational woman that has inspired you to be the leader that you are today?” All spoke about their mum. Hadeel shared that although her mum worked full time she never felt as though she was missing out. Her mum is now retired but still takes on consultancy work. She is a strong female role model and has always encouraged Hadeel to give back to the community. There were tears in the room when Amy shared the story about how inspirational her mom was. Amy grew up with mainly her and her mum as her siblings were older. Amy's mum had an accident, when Amy was a child, which left her with a disability, but this didn't stop her doing anything including taking great care of Amy. That demonstrated resilience and strength to Amy. Samiha spoke about her mum coming to England aged 14 and becoming a teacher. Samiha’s mum has always believed in her even when she didn't always believe in herself.
The event finished with nibbles and networking. I definitely left with my cup having been filled and I’m sure many others felt the same way.
(Shilpa Shah is the CEO of Community Pharmacy North East London)
