The First Session of Interviews with Honorables: Interviewing Honorable Ghita Badroun
21st October 2021
Written by Julie Lee
On October 21st, the APDA Global Young Leaders Course, established by Dr. Hanna Yoon, a Strategy & Communication Consultant/ General manager of education of APDA, held their first session of interviews with Hon. Ghita Badroun provided by Dr. Samadi from FAPPD and Dr. Farrukh, Dr. Hanna and Dr. Kusmoto from APDA.
Hon. Ghita Badroun is a young member of the Parliament of Morocco and is a member of the Morocco-Belgium friendship society. She advocates for health care, education and gender equality. She is also strongly passionate about protecting women’s and girl’s rights. In this interview, Hon. Ghita Badroun gave deep insight into what place parliament is and the significance of the role of being a member of parliament. In addition to presenting her insights on parliament, the interview allowed for the members of the APDA Youth Forum to propose their policies and receive meaningful feedback.
Interview with Hon. Ghita Badroun
The interview began with questions regarding Hon. Ghita Badroun’s job as a young member of Parliament of Morocco such as her inspiration for her career and how she overcame numerous difficulties.
To such questions, Hon. Ghita responded in depth by replying that ever since she was a teacher, she had highly regarded bringing change and consequently continuously thought about what she could do to bring greater change into the world. Therefore, when she received the chance of becoming a member of Parliament of Morocco, she took it as she believed that it would enable her to bring change.
Hon. Ghita emphasized how her job as a teacher largely helped her when she became a member of parliament. She explained that during her time as a teacher in primary school and college, she had the crucial role of acting as the middleman between the students and parents and hence creating a connection between the two parties. She emphasized that her role as a middleman is currently reflected in her current job as a member of parliament as now, she serves as a connection between the people and the government.
Focusing on the topic as her job as a member of parliament, Hon. Ghita emphasized that as her role as a middleman, she had to speak for the people and represent them in parliament. She further illustrated that since she had the authority, it was important for her to take action to bring greater change for the people.
When asked about hardships, Hon. Ghita elaborated that she managed to overcome these hardships, that came along with being a member of Parliament, by stating the importance of the combination of work efforts and social values such as honesty and hope.
As the interview progressed, the interview between the participants and Hon. Ghita Badroun continued with various participants asking ranges of questions, including honorable Ghita’s career and her opinions on social issues.
(Below is a slightly edited transcript of some questions mentioned in the interview with Hon. Ghita Badroun)
1. What first inspired you to pursue a career in your field?
Before I was a member in parliament, I previously worked as a teacher in primary school and in college. One of my main principles while working as a teacher was that it was my responsibility as a citizen and as a part of the people to think about how one could change the world to make it a better place. Therefore, I believed that one way I could change the world was by entering parliament and representing the people since it would give me more physical access in changing the world. Hence, when I was given the opportunity to join parliament, I quickly joined as it had been a dream of mine.
The main reason why I believe it is important to change the world is because I would like to create chances for society and especially for women, girls and the youth so they can thrive in today’s world
2. When do you feel that being a parliamentarian is a fulfilling and rewarding experience and career?
I believe that being a parliamentarian feels the most regarding when I successfully defend the population, especially the youth and women. This is because I believe that I and the other members of parliament have been honored by the people and citizens to represent them, which I believe is a very important mission for us parliamentarians. However, I must state that there are also significant challenges that I face as a young, female member of parliament. Since there are so few parliament members that are simultaneously young and women, I become an example and representative of the women and youth to the entire society. This means that if I am able to succeed, all the women and youth also succeed, however in contrast, if I make a mistake or fail, this not only fails all the women and youth, but also gives them a bad image which results in severe and harsh criticism from society.
3. What do you identify as the most pressing social/political issue facing the world today? Additionally, what kind of policies are you currently working on in order to tackle and stop these issues?
The most pressing social issue I currently believe is the issues regarding gender inequality, more specifically, towards women. Therefore in order to fight this issue, in parliament we have 3 missions that we follow: legislation, government action control and evaluation. Through legislation, we are able to defend women by issuing bills which can defend women’s rights. Through government action control, we can create questions to propose to the government to persuade them to create programs/projects to help women in bad situations, such as poverty. Finally, in evaluation, since we can evaluate each public policy by sector, we evaluate women’s rights as a sector which will allow us to inspect if the government has taken any action to assist women, for example, if the government had economically empowered any unemployed women.
Feedback from Hon. Ghita Badroun
Soon after the interview, the students then presented their proposals supported by research for the upcoming APDA Youth Forum on November 18th to Hon.Ghita for feedback. Each participant briefly presented their solutions to 1 of 3 specific worldwide issues (the aging population, environment or poverty) and received feedback from Hon. Ghita Badroun as to how their ideas may be further strengthened.
* This article is written by student of 『APDA’s Global Young Leaders Course』
** Copyright of this article is in the APDA and it is prohibited from unauthorized copying without permission
Editing Dr. Hanna Yoon