Episode Transcript
Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother.
She is really my superhero.
That's why it's important for me to support women to share their uniqueness, their personalities,
perspectives, and emotions about this world.
In these difficult times in human history, we need to bring the people of the world together.
And when we hear the voices of women, when we listen to real lives of women from other
countries, we connect our cultures without differences or stereotypes, and we get inspired
by their stories to live a better life.
That's what this podcast is all about.
My guest today is Ritej Trabelsi.
Ritej is a published author with her own book and the first Algerian girl in this project
to support women and share their lives and experiences.
Ritej is 15 years old.
She lives in Algiers, the capital city, and she is a first year student at the best high
school in Algeria, the mathematical high school.
They accept only the first and the second ranked students in every city that pass the
middle school exam.
Ritej is a public speaker, a young journalist, TV host, radio presenter, the youngest TV
presenter in Algeria presenting two TV programs on public television and presenting a radio
program in the Algerian radio, a writer, and a book lover.
Ritej won the first prize as the best TV host in the Arab world during the Festival of Carthage
in Tunisia.
She won the first prize in the Arab world in Arabic competition of public speaking,
poems, and grammar, the second prize in Algeria for the Arab Reading Challenge, and she is
the ambassador of Algerian childhood.
She is also a young web developer doing front-end HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Ritej, how are you today?
Hi, Aziz.
Thank you so much for this opportunity to be here with you.
I'm Deryn Rael.
I'm happy because I'm with you, and I hope I'll be like the best presenter and ambassador
of Algerian girls and women to prove and to show that yeah, we exist.
I love the energy.
I'm happy.
I'm honored.
I'm very privileged to have you here and curious about you as a person.
So I'll begin with this nice first question.
If your friends could describe your personality, what would they say about you?
It's a nice question.
So if my friends, maybe they'll be here and they'll describe my personality, they'll say
that I'm kind of people on brushes who want to know everything about a lot of things,
who want to have a lot of information.
I'm curious.
I'm kind of people who want to learn and who love learning.
Also maybe they'll say that I'm positive and optimistic girl.
I have like a good energy every time I try to motivate them, to give them energy, to
give people energy, to be always positive and to believe that everything good will happen
in our lives.
I'm also kind of people who work hard and dream big and who do their best to achieve
their dreams and kind of people who believe there is no one possible in this life and
that we can achieve everything if only we trust in ourselves and if we work hard, if
we believe in God and if we follow like a way, like a clear way to a goal without like
doing any bad thing, inshallah always will have like success.
Maybe my friends will say that about me.
I love that I have so many questions and I'll begin with the simple one.
A lot of people grow up in situations where maybe when they were small, their family,
they were talking and the kid or the girl tried to talk and they say, no, don't talk
if there are adults talking or they tell them proverbs like curiosity kills the cat and
you're very curious or what do you think, who you think you are so they don't think
everything is possible.
Were you a girl who you had to overcome such obstacles and to find your own confidence
or if not, what are your beliefs or attitudes that allow you to be curious, to be ambitious
without putting limits on yourself when many other people do?
Yeah, as all people, like I found a lot of obstacles and like I know there is nothing
easy in this life, especially as like women, like girls, like the government tell us always
to stop.
You're only women.
You can do everything.
You can't do anything, but I don't believe in that.
I believe that I'm special because I'm a girl.
I'm special because of women.
I'm special because I can do everything and I can prove to all the world that, yeah, yes,
I exist.
I'm a girl and I can do everything.
I can be better than you, you know, anyone and any girl can find a lot of obstacles in
her life, but she has to, I don't know, like to be confident and to be strong, to say to
all the world, I can do everything and no one can stop me.
That's why we should like believe in ourselves and should believe in our abilities as women.
We should say to all the world that we exist and we have a lot of abilities.
If we believe in ourselves, if we do our best, no one, no one can hurt us.
No one can stop us, especially as women.
We can do a lot of things to this humanity, to this world.
Yeah, we can find obstacles, but in the same time we should be strong and we must be strong
to give more to this world, to give more to all this humanity.
I love that mindset and the energy I can perceive how your friends say that you energize them
and to ask you, look, we live in a time of social media where there are many fake people
who show on social media perfect life, where they're living in luxury, maybe in Dubai or
New York or London, and women who are photoshopped and look perfect.
Many girls can lose their confidence and self-esteem when they compare themselves to such people
and they think, wow, I am not so beautiful or wow, I will never be so successful to be
in a yacht and to be on a private jet and all those things.
What allows you to have your confidence without or even when comparing yourself to such people?
What's your advice to such women and girls in order to get their self-esteem without
feeling that they are inferior and not as good as those celebrities and people on social
media?
What's your perspective on this?
So yes, it's a really good question, especially for girls and for women when they're so
when they see like celebrities and like, I don't know, actors on Instagram, on social
media, they said like, ah, we're not beautiful like them, we're not perfect like them.
But I say to myself always and I say to my friends and like from this broad case, I say
to all girls and to all women, you're perfect just the way you are.
You should believe in yourself and you must like love yourself as you are.
There is no typical model.
You don't have to be like, I don't know, like Angelina Jolie or someone else.
You should be yourself.
You're special because you are self and special because Améritéche, maybe other girls, she's
special because she is herself.
I tell to every girl that you are amazing as you are.
All of us, we have mistakes.
We're not perfect.
We don't have like, I don't know, magical beauty, we're not like gorgeous or something
like this.
We don't have like perfect body.
But at the same time, when we, if we love ourselves, if like we trust in ourselves,
if we have confidence in yourself, no one can stop us.
No one can stay and belly on us.
Just we have to love our lives as we have to love our lives.
We have like to love ourselves before everything.
If you love yourself, dear sister, dear woman, you can do everything and you can be like
unstoppable.
Just like you should know that you are beautiful as you are.
And every girl, every girl, she's beautiful in her way.
We can't like all of us be the same girl or like be or have the same beauty.
There is a difference between women.
There is a difference between people.
And that's something good, that's something who make us different.
We're different and we're beautiful in the same time.
Just like we have to love ourselves before loving anything.
If we love ourselves, if we love our mistakes, if we love our beauty, we'll be the best and
we'll have no problem.
Just we don't have to compare with, I don't know, with actors, with celebrities, because
there is nothing true in this life.
Social media is a big lie, especially Instagram, a lot of people use Photoshop, a lot of people
like tell to others that we have a perfect life.
We should know that no one have or has a perfect life.
No one can be living in a perfect way without any problem.
All here, as all people, we have problems, we have mistakes, we're not perfect, but we
try always to love ourselves, to give to people good energy.
If we love ourselves, if we tell to ourselves every morning that I'm beautiful, it'll be
a good day, it'll be a good day, and I'll do a lot of things.
Just we don't have to compare with others, and in the same time we have to love ourselves
as we are, without any filler, without anything.
Just we have to know that we're beautiful, we're awesome, we're gorgeous as we are, that's
it.
I really enjoy that perspective and energy, and I'm curious, maybe some Algerian girls
or other girls from all over the world can think, wow, Litesh is so active, she's doing
so many things, maybe she never sleeps, I don't know how she does it.
Me, I don't know how to be as productive.
And I understand you're a human being, just like you said, so what is your typical day?
What's your productivity method?
How do you achieve a lot without burning out, or do you go for burnout and then you rest
when you burn out?
Or how is your advice, let's say other girls come to you and they say, we want to be active
like you, we want to be an author, TV presenter, actress and artist, and succeed at school
and do mathematics and everything, but there are not so many hours in the day.
What is your plan?
What is your advice for them?
And how would you share about your typical day and typical approach to productivity?
So thank you for the question, Aziz.
Yeah, I can say to all people that there is no one perfect in this life.
And we should know that I'm as old girls, as old women, I love sleeping, I love working,
I love doing a lot of things, and I think the big secret in my life is that I can control
myself.
We have to control ourselves to know what we should do and what we shouldn't do, what
we must know and what we mustn't know.
Just we have to control ourselves, we have to know the best for us, we don't have to
waste our time.
Yes, I know sometimes we have to have fun, we like to do something, to get funny, to
get fun with friends, but at the same time, we have to work hard, we have to see our goals
clear in this life and to work hard to achieve them, because I don't know, the taste of the
success is special and it's like amazing.
Just imagine yourself achieving your dreams like this day, it'll be amazing.
So every time I get boring, every time I feel like I can't do more, I'm tired, I'm exhausted,
I can't do, and I can't give more, I imagine the day when I'll achieve my dream, when I'll
be like the perfect version of me, it'll be amazing.
And I think the big secret is just to control ourselves, just to have to know how I control
myself, how you can control yourself, how every girl should control herself to give
more, to be, I don't know, to have energy always.
We can like just maybe also we have to organize our day, we have to, every time when I wake
up every day, I say to myself like I do a list, it's called to-do list.
In this to-do list, like I do like goals for this day, the same day after, you know, every
day I do the same thing, so I try to not lose my time, to not waste my time, to not lose
my day, so in this way I can be someone who give a lot of things to this country, to women,
to humanity, and my big dream and my big plan, inshallah, one day I'll give a lot of things
and one day I'll do something who, I don't know, like someone never done, and I think
this day will come one day and I'll be like really famous, nearly successful, I'm doing
my best to be this person, to be this person.
And the second thing that I can say to every woman and every girl, just be happy in the
way of success, you don't have to be really successful, and you don't have to be like
perfect, someone magical who do a lot of special things, you know, just if you be like, I don't
know, just like successful in your way, you can be successful in the way of success, you
know, cause success is not easy, to be successful is not easy, but to be happy in the way of
achieving your goals, achieving your dreams, it's a big success, and not people can be
happy in this way, it's hard, I think it's hardest than, it's harder than achieving our
goals.
So that's it, I think the secret is only in controlling myself, in knowing what's maybe
make me better in like, I don't know, knowing my goals, that's it, you should know our goals,
we should control ourselves, and we should have rest always, just we have to be comfortable
in everything we do, we should love what we do, I love presenting, I love journalism,
so therefore I love presenting and love presenting tv shows and I don't know TV radios, I love
writing, so therefore I'm author, I love, I don't know, I love poems, so therefore I'm
poet, I love mathematics, so therefore I study in mathematical high school, we should love
what we do, I love programming, I love web development, so therefore I love learning
more and more and more about developing, about programming, that's it, we should control
ourselves, we should avoid something who can like make us feel or something like this,
you know, just we should know what can make us better and we'll be successful inshaAllah,
that's it, that's my secret and I hope always that I'll be better, I hope all women, all
people in this humanity and in this world can achieve all their dreams.
I agree 100% and as the first girl from Algeria and a representative of Algerian women and
girls, imagine someone is listening, they don't have friends from Algeria, they don't
know much, if you could describe in 2023 already what is the culture, the attitude and the
mindset of young Algerian girls, how are they, are they more traditional, are they a mix
of all cultures, what is unique and different about their way, their culture and the way
of being of people from Algeria?
So I can say that Algerian girls, Algerian women are amazing, not because I'm Algerian
but only because I live with them and I know that they have like special mentality, Algerian
girls, they, I don't know, they are a mix between like the original, the culture and
the same time the modern life, we don't forget our culture, our traditions, we don't forget
our history but in the same time, we look to the future and we live a modern life, you
know, we love our language Arab, we love our identity as Muslims, as Arabian people, as
Algerian, Algerian girls also are always proud of our country Algeria and they are successful,
a lot of Algerian girls in different topics, in difficult fields, they are amazing.
In Algeria, you can find the best doctor, you can find the best scientist as women,
you can find the best writer and the best author like, I don't know, Ahlam Mestranmi
if you know her, you know Algerian women and Algerian girls are just amazing, they try
always to be different, they try always to give a lot to this country because they know
Algeria is a great country and Arab country is amazing, all this world and all this humanity
needs us to be successful and to give a lot, a lot, a lot of things.
I think these are the Algerian girls and also the special thing in Algerian girls that they
are always kind of girls and kind of women who doesn't believe in the possible, they
say always that everything is possible, you know, they do their best, you know, in Algeria
we have our religion, we respect our religion but at the same time we try to give a lot
of things, at the same time we try to be like successful women, you know, there are a lot
of Algerian scientists in Gaza, in USA, there are a lot of Algerian women and I don't know
in big countries, in big societies and they give a lot of things, there are a lot of pilots,
there are a lot of doctors, there are a lot of engineers, like just the Algerian woman
is perfect and is amazing and it's nice to have like friends from Algeria.
Thank you, Ritesh, this was an absolutely fantastic motivational episode, you really
should be also add a motivational speaker to your resume, to your hobbies and skills
and to ask you a final question.
What is some advice or a lesson you have learned about how to live outside of your comfort
zone to go for the difficult goals without thinking, no, that's too much, I'm not strong
enough to do it, where other girls so that they can shoot for the moon and for the biggest
goals ever believe in themselves.
What are some either specific things like maybe affirmations or writing the goals down
every morning or some general mindsets like believing you never know or believing in God
or I don't know exactly how you approach it, that you give as advice to girls so that they
will achieve their full potential.
I told you before, I believe, Louis, that there is something, there is nothing cold
and possible in this life, we can do everything if we trust in ourselves before, how can I
trust in myself?
A lot of girls can ask this question, I told you and I tell you, dear girl, that if you
wanna trust in yourself, you should be someone who has a lot of cultures, someone who read
a lot, someone who know how he spent his time, like you don't have to be someone who stay
in bed every day, someone who doesn't do anything and tell, oh, I don't have confidence in myself,
I can be successful, you have to go out from your comfort zone, you have to dream big,
to know that you can do a lot, a lot of things, you have to believe in yourself, to believe
in God, you have to write your dreams, I don't know, it's my way to stay always happy and
to achieve more.
Every time when I got born, when I feel tired, I write my dreams and I write my plans, I
write my goals, so that can help me a lot, it can motivate me first and as a second thing,
it can give me always energy to follow and to say to all people, yes, I exist, yes, I
can do a lot, a lot of things.
I didn't do anything interesting until today, but I'll do, I'll do a lot, a lot of big things
when I grow up, I'll finish in this way, inshaAllah, and I'll have lot of success, I'll live in
myself and I know that I can do it one day, I know that I can do a lot of things, I have
big energy, I have big dreams, I have big abilities, I believe in myself and I know
someday my name will be so big, will be written by God, inshaAllah, and that's the secret,
you just, you have to believe in yourself, you have to know what you have to do, you
have to read, you have to work hard before everything, cause you can't achieve anything
if you don't work, if you don't know your goals, if you don't be clear with yourself,
if you do mistake, you have to say to yourself, yes, I did mistake and I have to correct my
mistake, you have to control always yourself and you have to be always brave and say that
there is no thing called impossible in this life.
Why others can do a thing and me know, are they better than me, they have two bodies
and I'm not, no, no, we're all the same, just we have to like to be confident and to know
our abilities, to know how we should use our abilities in positive way, like in the positive
side, you have to know how we have, how we should use social media, internet, how we
can like be better in this life, that's it.
We should also believe in our God, we should believe in our dreams and they'll come one
day Inshallah, that's it, that's the secret and that's my advice to all girls.
Thank you, Ritesh, it was my privilege and my honor to have you in this project, you
did amazing, I wish you success, I wish you, like you said, to write your name with gold
and the books of history and keep going, I really encourage your success, thank you.
Thank you so much, Ritesh, I was honored also to be with you, I hope all women will be always
successful, it was like a big pleasure to be with you, also I encourage you, I hope
you will get a lot of success, thank you so much for this amazing broadcast to rare girls,
for every girl, for every woman that's so kind from you and that's it.
