Episode Transcript
Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother.
She's really my superhero.
That's why it's important for me to support women to share their uniqueness, their personalities,
perspectives and emotions in this life.
Too many women in this world feel alone.
They worry about the judgment of others and they struggle with their mental health.
But when they listen to the Rare Girls podcast where empowered women share their voices and
tell their stories, many women will feel inspired to live a life of freedom and to
overcome all their insecurities.
they will feel. It is a safe space to find their confidence, to remember their unique
beauty and to feel their self-worth, and they will connect with the sisterhood of rare
girls who encourage their success and support their dreams. That's what this podcast is
all about. My guest today is Noorzat Imanbek. Noorzat is a girl from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
living in Abu Dhabi, UAE. She is 27 years old and she has graduated from a Turkish university in
Bishkek as an educational specialist learning multiple languages. Her hobbies include making
beautiful videos, traveling, and expressing her vision creatively. Nurzat, how are you today?
Hello, how are you? I feel very good. Thank you so much. How are you today?
I feel happy. I feel blessed and very excited to speak to you, to know more about you.
So I'll begin with this nice first question, which is Nurzat, if your friends could describe
your personality, what would they say about you? So my friends will describe me as
smiling, positive, positive, helpful person because whenever something happened with my friends,
I am the first one who is helping and I try to listen to them to give right advice and
I can help them in any time.
So I try to be more helpful to my friends
and they will always describe me as helpful person.
I love that.
And I'm wondering, is this part of the culture
of Kyrgyzstani women, is it common that people
in Kyrgyzstan and women,
they are very helpful to each other
or is it your personality?
You are that way.
It's not about the culture.
It depends on the person. It's not about culture. There are different people in our culture.
So some people are helpful. Some people are very close. Maybe some people try to help
and it depends on the person. For example, I work with different nationalities, with
different cultures, and all of them are saying that we see a lot of different characters,
different people from Kyrgyz culture. So we are very, I don't know, changeable, I don't
know. We are very different, yes.
Thank you. And how was the adaptation to the UAE and living in Abu Dhabi, going
from Bishkek. Is it because there are so many people from so
many cultures who are all foreigners? It wasn't easy to
make friends where that could be very helpful. Like you
spoke to have the generosity of some of the Kyrgyz people.
Tell me about your experience adaptation. And how did you
expect Abu Dhabi? And how was it compared to what you
thought?
frankly saying, the adaptation wasn't good, like it was very difficult.
For example, I'm living in Kyrgyzstan with my family, with my mother, father,
with people whom I like, whom I love, and you know, it's like my comfort zone.
When I will go to another country, different home, different country, different work, different people, everything is stress, everything was stress for me, like I wanted to come back to my country, but I think about my future.
Like if I will come back, it will not change anything.
So is new country, new opportunity was waiting me
in Abu Dhabi exactly.
So Abu Dhabi is a beautiful city in UAE.
So from time to time I get used and now I love this city.
This city is really the city of opportunities.
Here I found myself, here I found my nature and I really like this city.
Thank you.
And you spoke about your comfort zone, being back home with your family and all that.
There could be a lot of women who are in their comfort zone and they notice there
are opportunities out but they worry what if I cannot adapt, what if I'm too afraid,
What if I'm alone and something happens?
What did you do in order to have that courage
to go out of your comfort zone?
Or what is your advice to women in general
so that they will go out of their comfort zone
rather than stay because it's less worrying
and less anxiety?
Yes.
So many people are very scared of doing new things.
So in such kind of situation,
I advise people not to be scared. I understand everything will be scared. You don't want to feel
strange in a new country, but we should be strong. We should achieve our goal.
Whatever comes to us, everything is difficult, but we should be strong and achieve this goal.
Like some people, they have a lot of opportunity,
but they're scared to making first step.
It's easy, just make a first step
and you can make second step, third step
and you can achieve whatever you want.
Yeah, and for example, in our culture,
most women are very shy, they are scared of,
even they're scared of saying their opinion,
They're scared of doing something, maybe it is wrong or something like this.
You shouldn't think about others, you should think about yourself, like, how to say, you
shouldn't be shy for everything, you shouldn't be scared, that's it.
And Nurzat, something related. Nowadays, a lot of women, they struggle with their self-confidence,
with their feeling beautiful because they see on TV, Instagram, photoshopped photos
of women who look, they don't even look like their photos in real life. And so they
feel ugly and that makes them feel depressed. What is your advice to such women so that
understand their unique beauty and not compare themselves so much to the Instagram girls and
social media? Social media. So I understand such kind of girls because the same situation happened
with me. For example, when I was a school girl, there was a lot of bullying in school,
you know, some friends, some young people who are studying with yourself, they are making
they want to laugh on you and such kind of things they can, how to say, affect your life.
But from time to time, I understand that it's all about self-confidence.
So self-confidence, it's all about psychology, maybe.
You should learn more things about yourself, what you like, what you don't like.
So you should have a self-confidence in order to be pretty, to do everything.
For example, yes, some people are going to surgery, for example, they don't like their faces,
they don't like their feet and they are making a lot of things.
But for me, if you feel not comfortable and if you want to have some change, why not?
You can make some changes, you can look after yourself and you should have some self-confidence
in order to be more beautiful.
And the main thing, we should be responsible for our happiness.
So no one will make you happy rather than us.
So we shouldn't think what people will think about us.
We should think about just about yourself.
I think so.
I agree 100%.
And I know that you're a girl who likes to express herself through video.
Can you share the story? How did you find this interest, this hobby, this passion?
And what does it give you? How does it feel for you when you're expressing using video?
So actually, I'm a very shy person, but I wanted to express my art, my own view to the world through the videos.
So mostly I spend my time on Instagram.
So I see a lot of videos, different kinds of videos, and I have some motivation.
And because of this motivation, I wanted to express my vision of you through the video.
So it's become my hobby.
Every time when I take a video, I'm very happy.
And I want to express this art, this beauty of everything through my video.
I hope that I will have some followers and I hope that I will get some experience and I will make good videos in the future.
I support you. I encourage you very much to make all your dreams come true and to ask about your life in Abu Dhabi.
Maybe if you think about Kyrgyzstan and all the possibility to have green spaces and rivers
and things like that, do you miss nature? And if so, how do you have or create opportunities
to connect with nature in some way when you're living in Abu Dhabi, especially with the
weather and it's a lot of desert? So how do you balance those emotions for yourself?
Actually, yes, I came from a beautiful country called Kyrgyzstan. There's a lot of mountains,
rivers. But when I came to Abu Dhabi, it was a little bit strange, different culture,
different nature, different weather. But I like some changes. So I like this kind of beauty.
So the God, he makes our world so wonderful.
So every time I'm very wondering.
It's very like, for example, the sunset in Abu Dhabi, it's very beautiful.
It's not like in Kyrgyzstan. It's very unusual thing.
And the same thing in Kyrgyzstan.
For example, in Kyrgyzstan, the mountains are very beautiful.
And in every place, they have a unique place.
And I had an opportunity to find the uniqueness in Abu Dhabi also.
And I really love this city.
It is, for me, it was, it wasn't strange.
So maybe I haven't had an opportunity to see such kind of beauty, such clarify.
But, how to say, in Abu Dhabi, so you cannot find the beauty in Abu Dhabi in other countries,
or the same thing in other countries, you cannot find the beauty in Abu Dhabi also.
Very, very, very true.
You also spoke about how difficult it was adaptation far away from your family.
how do you take care of your mental health?
Maybe there are many women who are struggling
with mental health, maybe they worry a lot
or some depression, but because they believe
fake it till you make it,
they have to pretend to be strong.
Like this podcast is about sharing the truth
that everyone and that all women are together
and they have struggles and mental health issues.
To you, whenever you feel not okay,
what do you do to take care of your mental health?
Anya, can you share if you had a journey
of taking care of your mental health?
Actually, in my situation,
I try to make some physical exercises.
For example, I like to do sport.
And so in such kind of, in that situation,
when I have a bad day,
I tried to run and to make physical exercises and throughout all my life I was
thinking about this kind of things about women, strength, women, equality. Throughout the years
we were struggling to be equal, we were struggling about the rights of women.
So, for example, in my culture, we have different culture, we have different mentality.
So, in our culture, it's a little bit very difficult. So, mostly girls are scared of
expressing their ideas, expressing their opinions.
I want really in this kind of century,
I want women to be very strong.
Maybe in society it is called feminism,
but people understand feminism, it's like against men.
It's not against men,
it's feminism is all about woman rights,
women equality and I want all the women to be strong, to express their ideas. Maybe they're
scared what will the others will think about their opinion, but they shouldn't care about others.
They should speak. They should be self-confident. We shouldn't be scared. The main thing,
you should make first step and I think actually the women in our world they are very strong
in emotionally and physically but they don't understand they are strong they think they are
very weak and very weak and they think that they are weak so we should give them more
confident that they can do, they can achieve anything.
I agree 100% and this podcast is specifically for that, for women to feel closer to each
other, to feel more empowered, to feel stronger and realize their self-worth. And to ask
you a bit more, when you are in UAE and you look at your future, are there some
and some goals that you desire.
Maybe you think, it's too hot,
I need to go to Iceland
and be in the frozen snow for a little bit.
Or you're thinking, oh, I want to save some money
and start a business somewhere.
Or you think, oh, UAE is a land of opportunity,
I wanna live there forever.
Or what do you see as your future goal
and vision in the next years in general?
As I said, this city, it's a city of opportunities and I found myself here and here it's a city
of freedom.
So in the future, in the future I want to be a good video maker.
So I'm interested in mobile photography and I study different courses and I want to travel in different Emirates and I want to be good at mobile photography and I want to work in the sphere of video making.
content creator, like in the future I want to be a blogger, travel blogger, who is sharing
the videos of different nature, different art, and I try my best to be, to achieve my goal.
Yes. I love that. Thank you so much. And to finish this, just I know you talked about it,
but can you give even more about your thoughts
and advice to women who maybe feel weak
or they feel nervous or they feel some anxiety
so that they find their confidence,
remember their unique beauty
and really go for their potential
and become the woman they can become?
In my opinion, women, they should know their rights.
They should know their...
They shouldn't be scared of expressing their opinions, their thoughts.
I think they should have more confidence and they shouldn't be scared about anything.
And if they feel not confident, they can change everything.
So, for example, in my situation, how I get myself confident, I wasn't... I was really
shy before, but I get myself confident because I make a step. So, in this kind of step, my
friends, my mother, they helped me a lot. And how to say, the
woman should know their rights, they shouldn't be scared, and
they should make a first step. And later it comes second step
and then later it will come third step and later you will
achieve more things. And for example, they see a lot of good
videos on Instagram, and they feel themselves not confident.
For example, if they want to have some changes, why not?
they can change something in their life
and everything is on their hand.
My life, for example, is in my hand.
I can do whatever I want.
So why not?
I can change it in good things.
I can achieve more things.
So it should be very strong
and we shouldn't care what they will say, or we shouldn't be shy, we should have more confidence.
I support that 100%. Thank you, Nurzat. It was my privilege and my honor to have you here,
to share your voice, to include you in this project. Keep going. I wish you all the success in the world.
Thank you so much for you also for this amazing podcast. I really loved it and it will help
for most of the women to be strong and I really support this project. I'm very happy to be a part
of this project. Thank you so much for you and thank you so much for other girls and thank you
for all of you.
You are welcome.
