The thirteenth post in our Celebrating Alumni profile series is Aliya Mudmarn, a 2019 AAMEP alumna. Aliya works in the area of child protection and women’s empowerment in the Deep South of Thailand.
Read Aliya’s story below:
Aliya Mudmarn
On the first day of my first job as an HR analyst in Malaysia, I knew that I didn’t like it, as I just sat in front of a computer all day and had no interaction with people. But I put up with it for a year because I didn’t have any work experience.
Then I got a great offer to work at Oxfam in Thailand as a women’s economic empowerment officer. They needed someone with a business background to help develop business proposals for women who were being affected by the violence in the Deep South of Thailand. This work really interested me, not only because I wanted to do something for my homeland, but also because my mum is from this region.
In Thailand, the majority of the population are Buddhist, but in the Deep South, the majority are Muslim. This region was originally an independent state, before it was annexed to be part of Thailand 200 years ago. Then, in 2004, a violent separatist movement began, which is still going on and affecting everyday citizens.
In my role, I worked with many women who were affected by the violence. Some may have lost their husbands, some their children. And because of the context in the south, women are expected to be followers – to stay at home and be good wives and good mothers. As a result, if they lose their husbands, it can be difficult for them to become leaders and to support themselves. Some remarry but others need to quickly become breadwinners to feed their families. Normally they sell something – either vegetables or food products or handmade products. But the challenge is they don’t know about business practices like quality control or how to do costing. Our project came to support them in terms of building both leadership and business skills, and we also tried to do some business matching for them between the local and urban market. Later, we implemented a social enterprise model so that the project would be sustainable, and I’m so proud to see that it’s still active as Wanita Social Enterprise.
Next, I shifted to work on another project – anti-violence against women. This was difficult for me at first, as I didn’t have any academic background in social work, but because we partnered with the Thailand Association of Social Workers, I was able to learn a lot.
In the context of the south, where the majority is Muslim, the religious institutions are the key actors who have influence on the lives of people. We first did a pilot project with the Islamic Council of Narathiwat Province on the numbers of women who were seeking help for domestic violence from their intimate partners, and within the four-month pilot project, almost 70 women came forward. In contrast, the Thai government agencies who are responsible for domestic violence only receive around 5 cases per year!
As a result, we worked with the same Islamic Council to establish the first women’s counselling centre in Thailand. This centre, overseen by professional counsellors, offered crucial support to victims of domestic abuse, particularly women and children. Later, this model expanded to other provinces.
Right after I left Oxfam, I went on a very interesting program to Australia – the AAMEP. It was like a honeymoon for me! The program took us to Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne to connect with the Muslim communities there, which I found fascinating as I hadn’t realized how active they were in fields like women’s empowerment, child and youth issues, and the arts.
Two experiences really stood out to me. One was meeting Peter Gould, who runs a design company that incorporates Islamic principles and art into business, which I had never seen done before. The other was visiting a women’s group that runs a shelter to support domestic violence victims. In the Southern Region, shelters like these are only run by the government, so I was really impressed to see a Muslim women’s organisation doing this work independently. The program also enabled me to build strong connections with other alumni and we still keep in touch and support each other’s events.
When I returned, I shifted to work in Child Protection at UNICEF, my current role. It’s another world compared to my upbringing – my parents never used violence with each other or us children, so it was eye-opening to see how many families experience violence, and how traumatic and long-lasting the impacts can be.
In this role, I focus on three things – strengthening the child protection system; working on alternative care for children who do not live with family; and supporting Thai children whose families crossed over to Malaysia. My advice to anyone wanting to work in child protection is to always put the benefit of the child at the centre of everything you do. Even if a task is boring, if it helps a child, it’s worth doing!
The biggest life lesson I’ve learned from all my roles is the importance of empathetic listening, a key aspect of which is that we listen to understand, rather than to respond. This is so powerful because it allows us to connect with the reality inside another person’s mind and heart. When we work with women and children, we must listen to their voices and let them be a part of decisions about their own lives. If we don’t, we risk crossing their boundaries, disrespecting them, and leaving them with negative experiences.
Listening is a skill that requires more learning and practice than we often realize. It helps us to become mindful, not just at work, but in our daily lives with others, and most importantly, with ourselves.
Aliya Mudmarn
Narathiwat, Thailand
AAMEP 2019
