Today we’d like to introduce you to Bazal Morani.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Bazal. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I graduated with a bachelor’s in EC-6 with an ESL education degree and went on to teach for a few years. While I enjoyed working with children and loved making a difference, I always felt that the classroom environment created a limitation on what could be done to really help the students find their best potential. At some point, my dad asked me to come into his accounting firm to help him run his business and I am currently doing my MBA and working on getting my series 7 license.
As a business consultant, I help business owners find financing and assist them with growing their company value by determining the weaknesses within the company and guiding them on how to strengthen those areas. With a wide range of connections, we help the clients make better financial decisions and help them with their estate and financial planning.
Pauline Holmes, the organizer of Queens and Future Queens, reached out to me via Linked In back in June of 2019 and asked if I would be willing to help out with the Champions for Change Leadership Awards program they were planning. I had just started my womenempowhermentblogs website and was excited to be a part of empowering young women and bringing my knowledge and skills to the table. Within a short time, I got so engaged in helping develop the program and enhancing the projects that were being provided that I was given the honorable title of “Program Executive Chair”. I have been instructing the dance classes and working with the big sisters in planning the projects they will lead and have never been happier.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Some of the biggest struggles we face are financial-based. Due to lack of funding and a very slow donation stream, funding projects for the Queens and Future Queens proves to be very difficult. Due to the size of the organization, finding sponsors and donors ends up becoming difficult and unfortunately that impacts the amount of projects and the quality of them that we are able to implement.
Another challenge we face is getting enough volunteers that are willing to put in the time and effort to make the programs successful. With that said, we have some wonderful volunteers who we also highlight as “volunteer of the month” on our social media pages and we are so thankful and blessed to have them as a part of our team.
Please tell us about Queens and Future Queens.
Queens and Future Queens was started by Pauline Holmes do to her personal experiences of suppression as a female. In order to stop the hurt, she started an organization to help girls by providing tools for them to be successful starting from a young age. Started in 2017, QAFQ Started as a mentorship program within schools from the Dallas, Frisco, and Little Elm ISDs assisting the “BAD” Girls to express themselves and show what they truly were capable of becoming- Empowered. Girls were given mentors that are themselves Queens in their fields to help guide these Future Queens into becoming their best and most empowered self. Teaching them the most important concept of all – “you’re a girl” is not a reason why you can’t do something.
Today QAFQ has expanded into external projects that allow for our Future Queens to really experience and explore themselves and find their true callings. With a focus on STEAM education, QAFQ provides girls ages 10-18 with skills such as financial planning, resume building, interviewing skills, etc. along with guidance on picking a field of interest, goal planning, and preparing for college and a successful career. With partnerships with some of the most amazing mentors in the DFW area, these Future Queens are being set up for success.
Some of the current programs we have in place are the mentorship programs, dance classes every Friday evening, Podcast discussing issues women and young women face on a daily basis (Starting this November), Champions for Change Leadership Awards (CFCLA 2020 will be our first annual award ceremony coming in October), Big-sister led projects such as arts and crafts and reading circles (dates to be confirmed by big-sisters soon).
What sets us apart from others that there is no limitation to how long you are part of the program. Once our future Queens complete the mentorship portion of their own program, they become big sisters to the younger girls that enter. Leaving us with two portions of the mentorship program; one where an expert in the future queen’s field of interest guides them on goal setting and planning for that career and the second where a big sister mentors them in the area of social and emotional skills and providing support for the young girls. The older girls still continue to gain support through our QAFQ database system where all those affiliated with the organization are there to help one another. With a policy of 48 hours response time for all those parts of the organization, we create a lifelong sisterhood bond that you won’t find anywhere else.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I don’t have just one favorite memory, I have a few that kind of work together to make one wonderful experience. My favorite memories are of Ms. Thompson, Ms. C, Ms. Raheela, Ms. Pat, and Ms. Linda who all encouraged me to pursue my dreams and never made me feel less than anyone else. They are the first ones to show me I was capable of doing anything I put my mind to after spending all of my elementary years being judged by my gender and being told that I didn’t know English because of the color of my skin. They showed me I was more than how I looked and gave me the power and confidence I have today.
Thanks to Ms. Thompson and the high school teacher she brought in to talk to me, I now have four published books and am still writing today. Thanks to Ms. Linda I am capable of expressing myself through different media and feel confident when under the spotlight. Thanks to Ms. C I have amazing interview skills and have a strong business mind, and the fact that I can build a teddy bear by hand is a cool skill to brag about too. Thanks to Ms. Pat, I have the skills to absorb new information in all fields and truly understand them without getting frustrated or overwhelmed. Ms. Raheela taught me to take my love for reading and writing to new levels as she taught me how to use it to be the voice for others and to truly stand up for those who need it most.
So if I was to put all that into one memory, I would say my favorite childhood memory is getting the opportunity to meet all these superstar teachers who helped me into who I am today.
Contact Info:
- Website: QueensandFutureQueens.com
- Phone: 2149237307
- Email: events@queensandfuturequeens.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queensandfuturequeens/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/queensandfuturequeens/?ref=br_rs
- Twitter: @queens_future
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