Interviews with Aya Chebbi

 Interviews with Aya Chebbi 

Collection of interviews from Forbes, The Guardian, BBC and others 

How do you practice self-love? 

It is still a work in progress to manage exhaustion and burnout. But I started exercising some healthy habits like; acknowledge failure, sometimes saying "no", to focus my energy instead of saying “yes” to support everyone, take breaks when needed, take longer showers with my favorite incense flavors, massage my head, watch no news before bed and when I wake up etc.

What is the meaning of "Your Power is Your Radical Self. Find it " as you're known for saying it?

What I mean by Your Power is Your Radical Self. Find it is knowing who you are, finding your voice and living your truth. Not someone else's. it means to find your identity, your true self, and live your mission. Being radical is owning your truth. It's authentic confidence, stepping into your power and saying yes to YOU 

There are only two things you need to do in your journey: find your identity and live your mission. You need to know who you are and what you stand for. Once you know your identity, know why you wake up every day and why you do what you do, that’s your mission.

I run a mentorship program called YPHEM which gives me a lot of inspiration of why I should continue to do what I am doing and serve, the experience with my mentees reminds me of my younger self looking for my identity and my mission, and I practice with them the exercises I share on gratefulness, self-love, meditation and taking your strength from being your truthful self. 

 

 

What is your purpose? 

I genuinely hope to make my small contribution to building the Africa We Want by uniting and rallying our youth in Africa and the diaspora around positive collective action and by creating pan-African spaces for young people to thrive and serve our continent.

What being Pan-African is? 

Being Pan-African means that I live everyday with the obsession that, with African solidarity we can solve all of Africa’s challenges, with the idea that my liberation is your liberation, my access to education, my access to power, my access to resources, my access to the internet is YOUR access.

That is the ultimate act of solidarity. It means that everyday, I work towards an African unity of voice and action that transcends borders, ethnicity, skin color, language, political affiliation etc. My daily work is about organizing youth to turn their marginalization into a collective identity and building a movement of pan-Africanists.

Young people should aspire to be pan-Africanists. We have been talking a lot about the ’60s and the liberation movements that inspired us. Now we need to be the pan-Africanists of the 21st century, to lead this continent to where it deserves to be.  

What is being feminist and feminine? 

Being Pan-African also means being feminist because there is no pan-Africanism without feminism. Political solidarity manifested in the liberation movements in the face of colonial powers, now our solidarity needs to be in the face of patriarchy because patriarchy thrives in corruption, occupation, capitalism, exploitation and abuse.

Where you sit when you’re old shows where you stood in your youth, if you don’t take risks when you’re young, then when would you? being young by definition means radical, curious, free, and adventurous, and being female means nurturing, empathetic, intuitive and radiant. So, to my aspiring young women, imagine how blessed you are to be young and female, every failure means you are going to the next level and every risk is an opportunity for you.

What is activism for you? 

Activism is standing for something. I think any activism should be political. Every single one of us, should have a political voice and should be a political activist. Political activism doesn’t mean that you hold a political office but you have political consciousness.

What do you think of foreign aid to African countries?

Pan africanism refuses charity and foreign aid and advocates for self–determination, ownership of our destiny and democratic emancipation in post-colonial Africa. Besides, remittances from our diaspora are three times greater than aid. Surely, foreign aid with good intentions had impactful projects on the ground, especially when they’re citizen-driven and youth-led, but Africans are increasingly able agents of their own solutions. As we work into our self-centered development, and financially independent African Union from external funding, we need to move towards equal partnership especially that the global agenda 2030 recognizes that the north is not anymore “helping” the south but it’s a North-South agenda.