64: Ramadan - what you can do to support your muslim colleagues at work: Conversation with Uzma Lodhi, Director Internal Comms, APCO

ShownotesIt is the holy month of Ramadan (Ramazan) for millions of muslims across the world - a time of fasting, prayer and reflection. My memories of Ramadan(from India) are all about food (Iftar) and sweet sewai. Earlier this week I caught up Uzma Lodhi to hear her thoughts on Ramadan, what it means to her and how important it is for her personal identity, We also spoke about…..👉🏾 Childhood memories of waking up for sehri with her siblings👉🏾 The tendency to generalise, to treat communities as monoliths because it is easier to stereotype than not. 👉🏾 Supportive managers and organisations👉🏾 What organisations can do to support employees👉🏾 What you should not be doing to create discomfort for your muslim colleagues👉🏾 Some advise for those fasting for the first time at work👉🏾 We also briefly touched on navigating Ramadan in a multi-faith household. For Uzma, Ramadan is an uplifting, joyous time about achieving her inner zen, reflection, gratitude, and clarity. Thank you Uzma for the conversation. What does Ramadan mean to you and what are your memories of it?  Memorable passages from the episode: 👉🏾 Very excited to be here. I'm director of internal comms that APCO worldwide, I've been here for three and a half years with a focus on employer brand strategy and we're at the beginning of Ramadan, so this is a great time to have this conversation. 👉🏾 What does it mean to me? What does it mean to religion first? First of all, why do Muslims fast? They do it because it is one of the five pillars that Muslims follow. So within that, it's one of the five core pillars and it’s core to the identity of being a Muslim.👉🏾 Why do I do it? I think I've been doing it since I was a child, but that's not the reason why I do it now. I do it now because it helps me achieve kind of mental clarity and practice humility on an everyday basis. This is a month where I push myself to have a moment of Zen and tranquillity and think about what's important and I think about how grateful I am for everything that I have, that I've achieved and how to help others at this time. Normally I'm very chatty and very loud but it actually for Ramadan it is a moment to kind of take a moment to stop and breathe and that's why I do it. It's a peaceful month and I look forward to it to help me achieve that level of peace I need. 👉🏾 Absolutely, I have these great childhood memories and we could spend an entire kind of two-hour podcast just talking about childhood memories and how amazing Ramadan is. All of us waking up and all of us going down the stairs in our pyjamas at 3:00 AM at that point in the year when we were children doing the fasting. All of us there, my mom cooking breakfast for us and just all arguing, being tired with each other, but doing it because we know we're going to do it, you know, and then eating together when it's Iftar and it's just the most amazing.......... Which is what I aspire to, which is what I want our kids to have those kind of memories. And it's also kind of a form team building as kids, you go through it together. I loved it, it's such an amazing time. And even now at my age, I wake up and there's a group chat with our family and it's the only group chat you're going to have that's completely going full-on at 4:30 in the morning because they're the only people awake, they're the only people that know what you do eating breakfast and, it's perfect...

Om Podcasten

The Elephant in the Room Podcast is a curated safe space to have uncomfortable conversations about the pervasive inequalities in society and our workplaces. The idea of the podcast was born from my sense of conflict about identity, self and the concept of privilege and fuelled by my own need to understand how my overlapping identities and experiences had impacted and would continue to impact my life chances. Two years ago I decided to ‘opt out’ to find my own purpose and focus on passion projects including learning about the systemic biases that are endemic in business and society. The Podcast is my very own listening project, a step towards being more intentional in my learning. The Elephant in the Room Podcast is for people who want to be a part of the change, for those who want to step up & speak out, for those who want to learn more about biases, barriers and best practice, for business leaders and for individuals, anyone who is interested in a fairer, more inclusive and compassionate society and workplace. Each week I will interview inspiring speakers from across the world on issues that are taboo and deserve to be mainstream including(but not limited to) systemic and institutionalised racism, discrimination based on further eight protected characteristics, poverty, mental health, climate change. The podcast will also talk about cognitive inclusion, culture, purpose, ethics and the importance of empathy, cultural intelligence and how conversations on identity and disadvantage would be incomplete without considering intersectionality. With the podcast I hope to share stories of people with lived experiences, stories that may have never been told, stories that galvanise us to take action for change and keep the conversations alive by raising the decibel on issues of inequity, inequality in our search for a fairer and more inclusive world.