This year we were delighted to have Howell's alumna Hanan Issa join us for our College Prizegiving ceremony. Hanan is a Welsh-Iraqi poet, filmmaker, scriptwriter and artist. She is also the current National Poet of Wales. You can read the speech she gave to our students and their families below.
Howell’s School Llandaff Prizegiving Speech 2022
Last week I found an old photo of my nursery class’ nativity play. Three wise five-year-olds stand in their gold card spiky crowns, Mary and Joseph draped in blue and brown kitchen towels kneel in the centre. For some reason, there’s a group of children dressed as sausages sat in a cardboard frying pan. Above them stood on chairs is a row of little girls dressed in long, white dresses with homemade coat hanger wings and tinsel crowns. At the centre of this picture is me. My unruly curly hair hangs around my face and head like a lion’s mane. Arms stretched wide, my mouth is open and my expression looks as if I’m on the final verse of a Celine Dion ballad.
I don’t know if it’s my sparkly tinsel crown, my lone brown face, or the fact I look like I’m auditioning for X Factor but your eye is drawn right to me. I look like a confident, 5-year-old girl. Growing up I’ve lost count of the times I’d hear people say I was ‘a handful’ or ‘too much’.
I grew up in the 90’s where being skinny was the culture. And, since I know 90’s fashion is having a bit of a renaissance, I need to clarify that, being skinny/small this wasn’t just about your body type. Girls and women, we were expected to make ourselves smaller in every way so as not to intimidate. So I started to squash myself, to quiet myself to fit in with what was expected. I got so scared of being myself I forgot how to be myself. I lost that little girl, unafraid and unburdened by societal expectations. It’s taken me a long time to accept who I am and not be afraid of my voice.
I don’t know how many of you have felt something similar?
That you somehow don’t fit the mould?
That you are different or too much?
But, on the chance that you do or if the resurgence of 90’s fashion in any way encourages similar insecurities, I’d like to remind you to give yourself permission to take up space:
You deserve to take up space.
You deserve to have your voice heard.
Whatever it is that you hope to achieve in this life, I want you to keep in mind that you have everything you need - all that capability, that potential, that drive exists within you and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise because trust me, people will try.
As a visibly Muslim woman, there’s an endless list of stereotypes and assumptions people have made and continue to make about me. I used to brush off these encounters as ignorance and carry on. Then one day I saw a news segment where David Cameron, the then PM, said that Muslim women weren’t integrated or contributing enough to British society. I was shocked. To witness the leader of our country make such an alarmingly sweeping generalisation about a rich diverse demographic of women was like a slap in the face. I thought about the community of women around me, full of doctors and scientists to teachers, solicitors, and consultants. I thought about my Saudi niqabi-wearing friend who is a geneticist in a hospital but likes to skydive. Another friend who spends her free time volunteering at the Huggard centre and many many others and I felt compelled to speak up. I turned to Facebook and shared a very angry, badly-written spoken word piece in response to David Cameron’s statement. As soon as I clicked ‘post’ I regretted it but thankfully it seemed to resonate. Lots of people got in touch to share their own similar feelings of frustration.
I’m conscious that my advice might sound very general. It doesn’t consider when people lack confidence. Everyone, including myself, experiences that sense of imposter syndrome or hears that little voice telling you ‘you are going to fail’, ‘you don’t belong here’. And I have a confession to make, I felt it when I first came here. To Howells. Most of you probably don’t think twice about the Hogwarts-esque stairs or how delicious it is to have a ‘day room’ in your school but when I first came to Howells to study for my A-Levels as a bursary girl, all those years ago, I was intimidated. To be fair, it didn’t last long. Seeing Dr Knowles in fishnet tights or Mrs Chyba re-enact some choice chicken scenes from Chaucer soon banished those feelings but the main lesson I carry with me from Howells is to celebrate your wins, no matter how small.
Every assembly my mind was blown at how many announcements there were celebrating the achievements of students in everything from woodwork to gaming!
It might sound trivial but it matters. Nowhere since leaving Howells have I experienced that same level of empowering celebration.
So carry it with you when you leave here.
Have the audacity to celebrate your wins no matter how small. Next time you feel that pressure to shrink yourself - do the opposite. Spread out. Take up the space. Carry your wins and channel your inner Celine Dion.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Virginia Woolf, an incredible writer who certainly experienced moments of self-doubt: No need to hurry, no need to sparkle, no need to be anybody but oneself.