Taban has set up a charity, The Lotus Flower, which does good stuff with women and girls whose lives have been affected by conflict.
What inspired you to set up your charity?
It’s been driven by my own personal experiences. I’m a genocide survivor and I was a child political prisoner before I moved to the UK. In 2014, when I saw the humanitarian crisis causes by ISIS in Kurdistan, I was moved to help. I went to Iraq and spent 15 months working on the ground. When I came back to the UK, I couldn’t believe I was only 32 and I’d experienced two genocides in Kurdistan. From that moment, I knew that I had to do something.
How is your life better because of what you do?
What I do doesn’t feel like work. Knowing you’re helping others is beyond rewarding and something no pay package can fulfil. that.
What drives you to do good stuff?
Doing good stuff doesn’t cost you anything, why wouldn’t everyone do it?
People sometimes perceive being nice as being weak, what would you say to that?
It takes a weak person to think being nice is weak!
You can follow Taban on Twitter @tabanshoresh