Becoming a mother can present a unique challenge for women in international development. You have the drive to impact positive change, but at what cost to your family, yourself, and everything else that is already on your plate? Join me as I discuss balancing motherhood with career goals in my latest podcast episode featuring Nicoleta Ursescu, a determined mother and advocate for the economic inclusion of refugees and migrants in Senegal, West Africa.
Through her inspiring story, Nicoleta shares how she leverages her unique feminine qualities, such as empathy and community building, to make a meaningful impact on the populations she serves. She speaks of her challenges balancing her aspirations as a young mother with her career ambitions, highlighting the lack of mentorship and support between themselves women often face when searching for career advancement opportunities.
Finally, we shine a light on the need for more sisterhood and supportive networks for women working in her field.
Thank you for listening to Women Rise. Sign up for my distribution list so you never miss an episode. Learn more about the Women Rise leadership program for women change-makers on my website. If you'd like to be considered to be interviewed on this podcast, please write me directly or take this survey to find out if you're a good fit.
Becoming a mother can present a unique challenge for women in international development. You have the drive to impact positive change, but at what cost to your family, yourself, and everything else that is already on your plate? Join me as I discuss balancing motherhood with career goals in my latest podcast episode featuring Nicoleta Ursescu, a determined mother and advocate for the economic inclusion of refugees and migrants in Senegal, West Africa.
Through her inspiring story, Nicoleta shares how she leverages her unique feminine qualities, such as empathy and community building, to make a meaningful impact on the populations she serves. She speaks of her challenges balancing her aspirations as a young mother with her career ambitions, highlighting the lack of mentorship and support between themselves women often face when searching for career advancement opportunities.
Finally, we shine a light on the need for more sisterhood and supportive networks for women working in her field.
Thank you for listening to Women Rise. Sign up for my distribution list so you never miss an episode. Learn more about the Women Rise leadership program for women change-makers on my website. If you'd like to be considered to be interviewed on this podcast, please write me directly or take this survey to find out if you're a good fit.
I have the pleasure to welcome Nicoleta Ursescu on this episode of Woman Rise. Nicoleta is the mother of two wonderful little girls and she has been living in West Africa, senegal, since 2015. Nicoleta advocates for a women's empowerment and for the economic inclusion of refugees and migrants in society. She is passionate about making people believe in themselves. She likes to describe herself as being empathic, resourceful and standing by high values. Her motto, in Nelson Mandela's words, is a winner is a dreamer who never gives up. Nicoleta, I am delighted to have you here and welcome to Woman Rise.
Nicoleta:Thank you so much, claire, for having me. It's a pleasure. It's my first podcast, so I feel that it's a good start, a empowering start. Thank you for the introduction. As you mentioned, I have been living in West Africa and Senegal for the past eight years. Initially I wasn't thinking at all to come to West Africa, but the destiny brought me to West Africa. Actually, it was my husband's job that brought me here. Since then, we had two little girls. Now one is five and one is nine months. During this period, I worked for a different organization international, but also local organization because I wanted to be closer to local women and to have the chance to contribute through the projects I support. Specifically, I worked on education, on non-formal education but for the past at least four years, my passion is working with migrants and refugees. Currently I'm working for an international organization dedicated in supporting migrants, but before that I worked for a local association supporting urban refugees in Bacar.
Claire:Thank you for that Frame and Nicoletta. As you know, I'm interested in exploring the way in which women like you are bringing their feminine qualities of caring, of empathy and of community building to the workplace in ways that are impactful. Today, it seems to me that there are more women who are bringing soft qualities to this world of international development or humanitarian, and so I'm interested in exploring what brought you to this particular field of urban refugees.
Nicoleta:Actually, in 2015, when I arrived here in Senegal, I have seen so many women on the streets begging during the rush hours, holding babies and so on, so I asked my question immediately came and I said why it's happening like that, from where those women are coming from, and then I got in touch with a local Christian organization and I asked those questions and it came the opportunity to volunteer for them and that's how, actually, I got to know more about those women what are their daily struggles, how they arrived in Senegal, what are the reasons? As many of them explained that there were war in the region that made them to move, some of them just for the economic reasons, because the Sahel region, unfortunately, and the past years, it's very well known that suffers because of climate change, drought, but also literally war, and are internally displaced and so on. So from there I felt it, I myself as a woman, and it's like the expression, like the empathy what can I do for them? In thinking to put myself in their shoes and think what are my resources? Not necessarily to change their lives, but to improve their lives little by little.
Nicoleta:But I think, when you said about the feminine qualities and the myth of Shashab, I think it's very important which I felt, it is true, make them, when talking to woman on different with different occasions, is to make them feel comfortable to talk to you about their experiences and not at all to induce or to give to them a sense that maybe you are going to judge them for the choice that they have made.
Nicoleta:For example, just saying you should not bring your child in the street because it's pollution, because I don't know an accident can happen, because a mother knows that it's dangerous to bring that child in the streets. You don't have to emphasize, you don't have to have this like judgmental approach, because otherwise they will close and it will be difficult to get back to them. So I tried my best to create a safe space of sharing, to see them as an equal, no matter what, and to nurture this relationship. That is, I think it helped me to get to those women and to talk to them, to nurture their relationship, no matter the circumstances. I think that it happened for me and what I tried to do.
Claire:Yeah, and I love that you bring that right away in our conversation, because there's this quality of nurturing of empathy that seems like this is the source of your purpose in your work that, no matter what you do, this informs what you do. And so you said you began as a volunteer. Yes, exactly Now is it for you to start into this field?
Nicoleta:Yeah, so I have. Before moving, of course, and coming to Senegal, I had a Bachelor of Degree in Political Science, so that I had a bit of background of international relations and so on. But after 2015, after I volunteered for this Christian organization within, I decided to take on a Master and it was exactly in the refugee protection and forced migration studies. So I wanted to have also a legal knowledge, because, I said, information is power, so I wanted to better help those women when it's needed. So I finished my Master and I focused on Senegal and West Africa, specifically on the socioeconomic integration of urban refugees in the region. So that is my academic path.
Claire:Congratulations, you took that much to heart. Your heart was touched and you felt the samples to serve in this particular area and you really gave yourself the practical means.
Nicoleta:Exactly, I wanted to match my field experience with my academic path. I wanted to link those proofs, as you said, to have the authority to have behind the good arguments to bring on the table not necessarily, of course, a supporting woman, but also as my career development. That's what I wanted.
Claire:Yeah, yeah. And often here's this strange belief that if you're come too much from the heart, it doesn't work with being effective or doing what you have to do in the workplace. But here you're actually bringing these two together, the mind and the heart, in service of your vision of a better life for this population.
Nicoleta:Exactly because you cannot be like a stone not to have feelings. Of course the vulnerability of a woman touches you. You cannot be impacted by that, but I think somehow the strength that I get is by the actions or the support I can give to them and I see the good or the positive results. As an example, I was supporting the local association here in Senegal and during the last months, or since the war in Ukraine started, it's well known that Africa, especially West Africa, they suffer from a high increase of prices, the food scarcity. For getting even a simple baguette it's more expensive. So I try to help somehow this association to put together food baskets and I said now is the time to involve other actors like the private sector into those kind of donations. So we managed to distribute food baskets to vulnerable refugees, urban refugees in Dakar, so that I was happy that we managed to get the Routis Association to support those vulnerable families. So that it's just an example.
Claire:Yeah, you started with a firm volunteer. Then you added some academic background to your profile. Now you're just to count a new position.
Nicoleta:Yeah, I started like three weeks ago with an international organization for migration and Senegal and it's not exactly related my work to refugees, but it's all related to migration in general and it's a totally new sector right now. It's not for a long term, it's a short term. However, I wanted to explore it and to gain more experience and what means coordinating with authorities, how to involve better, like the local authorities, the national and international stakeholders in everything which means around migration governance. That's what I'm going to do for the next three months.
Claire:Congratulations. It sounds like a great opportunity and, speaking to this, I'm curious how easy is it for women like you working in international development abroad to get work opportunities? How do you navigate this field as a woman?
Nicoleta:Yeah, thank you so much for asking that, claire. Indeed, I will put it like that, it's not easy and sometimes I found it difficult or struggling to get where I want. For example, for a long period I was trying to do some consulting before having a role with an international organization and I felt it many times that probably my profile and my previous professional experience was not necessarily appreciated but not taken into right account or sometimes dismissed without being rightfully evaluated. So, yeah, I felt that sometimes I would have maybe needed more support from other women in this for being more receptive to the question. Or sometimes an email coming from myself, for example, asking look, I have this career path until now. Do you have maybe a kind of I don't know any opportunity in your organization or do you know of any maybe upcoming opportunities opening or whatever.
Nicoleta:And sometimes I did not hear back from those women and of course, it's not easy because diminished your confidence in yourself and you start doubting about yourself Am I good enough for what I want to do? And, yeah, that became at one point a struggle for me, especially after my maternity leave. Okay, and it was difficult to get back on my truck and to get into the humanitarian development field because I had a pose of like two years almost and it was a struggle and I think it's common for many women which I have seen in the humanitarian development sectors that this period of not being active impacts your career development.
Claire:You spoke to two important things. One, that you've not had the experience so often to be supported by other women in your field Exactly, and that sometimes, when you would have needed some support or asked for support, you didn't get any positive response or no response at all. Exactly, and that's across different organizations or within your own organization.
Nicoleta:No, it was a different organization. I will not put the point on one specific. It was different organizations. For Jennifer, last year I was pregnant with my second daughter and I had this consultancy period and I applied for a consultancy. I have been selected and, as I needed to travel in the region, like five countries in West Africa, at the end of the interview which I felt that went quite fine, quite well, it matches all the requirements with what I have done before and I said to the panel that I was pregnant because of the rule that I could not travel over a certain number of weeks and that was still under my assignment. So I said, look, I'm quite open to do as much as possible before that period and they just congratulated me and I never heard back from them. Yeah, so that is just a very recent experience from last year.
Claire:So that actually brings the two together the fact that motherhood isn't supported in this particular field, because there is this expectation that you can go anywhere in moments of crisis, which is perceived as compatible with motherhood, which should be your own evaluation right and not theirs Of course many organizations have internal measures or they encourage and so on.
Nicoleta:It's just as a consultant that it is a specific period of time. As a consultant, as I said, you have to be flexible. But I felt it that I had to bring it up to say that I was pregnant at that time because I had to travel in the region. So I could not have in just say I know I commit everything, it's fine For me. It felt it that I wasn't in good faith to do that Clearly.
Claire:And then you said something else, which is when you went back into the workforce two years later.
Nicoleta:you said yes, exactly, I had my first daughter.
Claire:Yeah. So then it was difficult to get back into the workforce, because you had a two years leave, which is, after all, at your age, at this time of your life. It shouldn't be affecting your career.
Nicoleta:In any way. In my point of view, no, but however, it happened, and I think many women listen to your podcast. My relate to that. What I try it, however, having a baby and being a new mom is to keep myself active, so I continued with my master. I was at that time, studying. I try to take as many online courses related to the livelihoods, for example, of refugees and migrants to get to try to meet as many people as possible, to keep networking, because that's it's available, if a resource or way to keep your network life, and that's what I try it LinkedIn, for example. It helps me a lot to just get in touch with many women in different countries working in the same field, try to understand what they are doing, pick their minds and try to ask for support, for example, support as mentorship, for example. That I try it, to do it and, as you said, sometimes it was positive, sometimes it was negative, so that's life.
Claire:So what I'm also seeing you know, nicoleta, is that in your generation you're much younger than I am women are actually not willing to compromise as much as women of my generation.
Claire:And I'm in my fifties, and I don't know if I told you last time that I lived as an expat for many years, including in Africa, in Nigeria and Gola, and so I met a lot of women in international development and humanitarian organizations who worked in this field, and often there were women who were single and they had to make a choice between having a family, and sometimes they didn't really have the choice, they just didn't have a family because they were working in international development and that was their passion. And so what I'm really excited to see is that women of your age, in this new generation, you're wanted all. There's no reason why you wouldn't have a family and why you wouldn't work in the area of your passion, because there is this desire to serve and there is so much that you have to give that no one else can give. So there is more confidence, I feel. Even if it's hard, I'm very happy to see that young women like you are not compromising as much anymore.
Nicoleta:Yeah, exactly, you're really well said. I see in myself, but also I'm in 30s, I'm 35 right now. I have seen and met Senegal, but also other countries, women saying why not, I can't do it? I have the qualities, I have the right environment to contribute to my career path. Also, what it's in my case which was also, let's say, beneficial or I was just lucky that I have a supportive husband, even though I came.
Nicoleta:Initially my dream was to go East Africa, not West Africa, but I said I remain open and flexible and I said, yes, try, we'll see how it goes and we will adapt to each other on the way. So, as I said, my husband was very supportive in all the choices I have made until now. As an example, in 2021, I felt that I needed a change. I was just fed up of everything in Senegal. You know, after COVID I mean, it was still ongoing COVID and everything so I got a job of opportunity in Tunisia. So I took my oldest daughter and moved to a not rural area, let's say, a town towards the south of Tunisia, and I worked with migrants, with South South Saharan migrants and return migrants, tunisian return migrants and I felt that I can do it and we discussed with my husband.
Nicoleta:I feel that I need to have another experience, another country, to embrace other practices, to see how it works, to see with my eyes about what's going on in North Africa, what's the situation of South Saharan, for example, migrants and so on.
Nicoleta:So, yeah, I worked there for two months and he was coming to see because he was more flexible at that time, so he came to see us in Spaks that's the name of the town where I worked and, yeah, I somehow that gave me the power, you know, to feel supported by the husband, by the family, but also by the local team that I had there. So I felt that I can do it and that's what I want to point it out. It's very important to see or to have the right support around you. But that is we have a say in Romanian language how you prepare your bed, that's the way you are going to sleep, something like that. So it's a bit I think it translates here it's how you prepare your own, let's say, field or way, how you want to go about that. You will have it for the future.
Claire:Yeah, that's beautiful. I think that it kind of brings this idea of inter-connection and we all support each other this sense of community building, which is another beautiful feminine quality. And when I speak to feminine qualities, it's not to say that men don't have these qualities. It's more about this idea that as women, we have that natural sense of community building, empathy, sisterhood, this capacity for women to bring a village together, to build community, to create a supportive net, whether to benefit from it or also to give it. There's just this natural capacity to be there for each other, to be in community. And so it's interesting that, for some reason, there's still, sadly this, as you perceived and talked to earlier this lack of support from women to women, maybe because there's just been this competitiveness that is kind of preventing from this natural qualities to come back.
Nicoleta:It's not easy yeah yeah, it's not easy and you are right when you speak about competition, that I felt it as well in the last years. I don't know, maybe it's the wave of like I don't know change or the society became more like a rush and it contributed to this kind. I have to be the best, I have to have the best job title, no matter what. But it's a general feeling. I'm coming back to my own situation to build my career, help it, and I try to understand why some do not help among each other. I try to put it maybe they have been in that position before and they haven't been helped. Maybe I don't know. It's just to try to find the reason why and then maybe they just say, okay, at that time it happened to me and I don't care about what happened to other woman, or I don't know. I try always to have a kind of understanding why what is happening like that and in my case, I'm just trying to reflect at what I'm saying with an example.
Nicoleta:I was working in 2020 for a big international organization and that we had an intern. She was American and she was struggling to get a job. It was like the first internship for her abroad, in Senegal and she was struggling to get back a job to pay her loan in United States. So after she left she worked with me on my integration project in Senegal and she left to the United States. And after a few months she came back to me and she said I was touched by, I did not even realize.
Nicoleta:And she said you know, nicoleta, because of your support and the way you mentor me somehow and you give me so easily advice, I have been able to have an interview with an organization and can I put also at the reference. And I said of course, you know, it will not cost me the world if I just spend one hour to give a good reference and to talk to your future employer. And she got a job and she's still with the same organization Now it's been like three years probably almost, and yeah, so she is on her path to develop her own career. So I was just happy because at one point for me it was nothing, but to her it meant the world and it meant the change that she needed.
Claire:That's a beautiful example of the kind of virtuous cycles that women can create, and men, of course, and I'm wondering often. What I've here is that there are more men who are willing to step as mentors than women. Actually, I don't know. I don't want to make any generality.
Nicoleta:Well, just the answer is your joke. Maybe they have more time, I don't know. It's interesting, for sure that it's an explanation why. But about this, you know, as you mentioned brotherhood versus sisterhood, I try to understand why it happens like that.
Claire:Well, there's probably more than one reason Women, as you said. It doesn't come easy for them and sometimes a natural reaction would be to not make any effort If no one made an effort for you. There's also a lot of competition between women and there are less leadership roles that are available for women. It's systemic.
Nicoleta:That's very true, that's very true. Coming back as you started the podcast at the beginning about the shift qualities and so on, what I observed, and until now, being a leader for many of us it means just to have like a top position and influence somehow what's going on around you. But I think it's not that the core of leadership. The core of leadership for me is to have the interior qualities, to know how to arrive at the heart of other people. For example, you said at the beginning that my motto was one of the expression of Narsaman Dela, because we knew how to arrive at the heart of people. He knew how to talk to people, he knew how to start something, to start an action that will arrive at a higher impact.
Claire:So for me, that is leadership to know how to arrive at the heart of people and to start a movement that's beautifully said, to arrive at the heart of people, and I think for that there needs to be a movement from the heart, right, exactly, it can only come from the heart, and that's what I call heart-centered leadership, because when you're informed by your heart, there is this natural desire to bring people together to act for justice, to act for creating virtuous cycles, and there's this natural sense of it's not just me moving through to get to the top. It has nothing to do with that, especially in your field, where it's all about serving others, exactly.
Nicoleta:So, yeah, I want to just answer to you with an African proverb. If you say, if you want to go close, go alone. If you want to go far, take someone with you on the way, because you need it. So I think that's the point here no matter where we want to arrive, we need someone to support, to support each other. We cannot just, you know, climb a ladder alone and to say I arrived in the top without any support.
Nicoleta:But what I want to say while climbing as it's in my case, I'm still in my early career I try to support other young women as much as I can, while I'm trying to bring with me up also other young women as much as possible. Yeah, like I had a few young Senegalese women doing their research on migration and refugee law, let's just say as an example. So I'm trying to help them, to connect them with people, with my network here in Senegal, give them the right tools, for example, to conduct research and so on. So I just try to, in my limit, I try to help them as much as possible.
Claire:That's a beautiful example of that new collaborative way of leading, exactly this sense of sisterhood that you're generating.
Nicoleta:I'm trying to generate and to revive it, because sisterhood exists and it always existed. It's just sometimes. I would say if you want to see a change, start with yourself. You know you be a change and bring an example. So for me I stand by that. If I want to have to see a change in my community of women or my network, it starts with me. For any other, I cannot ask from others if I am not an example.
Claire:That's great leadership, and one thing that I'd like to mirror to you is that when you speak to that, you know you're actually taking care of yourself. It's interesting, right? You're saying I don't let other sisters down. If a woman that I can help needs my help, I'll give it to her. It's not going to cost me anything and actually in giving, you're receiving, because you're creating this energy that is virtuous, that is generative, and that's, I think, the quality and energy that maybe needs to be rediscovered for some women who feel they still need to be in this competitive mode.
Nicoleta:And what I love about that is that brings me a feeling of fulfillment. No matter what I do, it's just I have been able to do something positive, meaningful, and if I can today change the life of a woman or a young girl, and no matter what I did, that is something meaningful, and I know that it's a small block in building something bigger. That's how I see it.
Claire:Nicoleta, thank you for sharing your wisdom here. I really appreciate it and it makes me always happy when I meet a woman like you, because I know, as you said, it's a small drop of water in the ocean and it's a meaningful one. It has meaning in itself towards a wave of change, that is, despite the difficulty of today's world, the multiple existential crisis. I love it that there are women everywhere that are giving their all to make a difference.
Nicoleta:Thank you so much, claire, for having me, for your great questions, and I'm doing just my best and I encourage everyone, every man and woman, no matter the gender, just to have this kind of awareness what's around us and what I can do, what kind of good I can do today. About tomorrow we don't know, everything can change tomorrow, but at least today I have done something good. So that's my approach, thank you, thank you to you, claire, bye-bye, bye.