From where I stand: “My children feel excited to watch their mommy working, and they are very supportive"

Vivian Makram, 32, a mother of two, put her career on hold for several years to focus on raising her children. As her son and daughter grew older and became more independent, she began rediscovering herself and her passion to revive her career.

“As a mother, having a successful career is essential and critical. It not only provides me with a sense of accomplishment, but it helps me become a role model for my children. I did not want my kids, especially my daughter, to believe that it is the norm for women to play only the roles of wives and mothers. I wanted them to look up to me as the best mother and also as a successful professional. They must learn that they need to find what they love to do, and to exert effort to succeed at it.

That’s why I began rediscovering myself and my passion to find out what I would enjoy doing [for a professional career]. Although I was working as a teacher before becoming a mother, I wasn’t interested in returning to this same job. Therefore, I began taking courses in digital marketing and user-experience design. However, most of the courses were too general and didn’t give me the required tools to join the field confidently.

I came across UN Women’s announcement for the copywriting training, and I was interested in joining, as it was a branch of digital marketing, which I was already interested in and I had already taken several courses. For me, I considered it an important component linked to digital marketing, which would be a value-added to pursue a career in the marketing field. I was surprised to find that the training was very detailed and not only provided theoretical content, but also hands-on work in real-life situations. The training was one of the best experiences of my life mainly because, first and foremost, it helped me discover my talent for copywriting.

After the training, I had two internship opportunities at a couple of marketing agencies, which helped me gain invaluable experience and exposure. Once I completed the two internships, I received my first freelance project and that was a personal moment of pride. I am excited now that finally, after one year of work experience, I will have the first piece of content in my name and my first income earned through a career that I love. Every day I am more confident that my choice of a career change was the right move.

Now, my children feel excited to watch their mommy working, and they are very supportive. Although they are still very young, they keep asking me about my work and my progress. I believe that I have succeeded in setting a positive example for my children.

I would have not been able to achieve all of this without the tremendous support from my husband. He would often rearrange his schedule in order to take care of our children when I was busy with the training, internships or any freelance work. My mother also played a great role in my success as she would always support me in taking positive steps in my career and would encourage me to try new things. I would like to thank both of them greatly because it is only with their support that I managed to succeed.”

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The copywriting training that Vivian joined falls within a wider set of trainings on creative industries delivered by Arascope for media production in cooperation with Media-Arts for Development (MADEV) including photography directing, scriptwriting, editing and coloring.

The activity comes within the framework of the regional joint programme “Promoting Productive Employment and Decent Work for Women in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine,” implemented by UN Women and the International Labor Organization (ILO), in partnership with the National Council for Women and the Ministry of Manpower, with the support of the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida).

Through this activity, internship opportunities were offered to 100 distinguished women trainees. In addition, teams of selected 30 trainees took part in a documentary competition, which resulted in the production of three women-led documentaries that focused on societal stories portrayed through women’s eyes. The documentaries have been submitted for participation at the upcoming edition of Aswan International Women Film Festival.

Vivian’s story shows the programme’s impact in providing women, and especially mothers, with efficient training opportunities to support their employment and career development as well as achieving gender equality and empowering young girls for future generations. This directly contributes to the achievement of SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls and SDG 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.