#28: Self-transformation and integrating into a new culture and society

Ghanaan Edwards, Marketing Manager at Hourlux and Co-founder of NPO Arnhem Together

Ghanaan’s life’s tapestry is quite an eclectic one.
She started her career in the fashion industry in South Africa and landed up as a Marketer in the Netherlands 6 years ago. A 180-degree transformation to say the least.

In this episode, she shares her life story from growing up in South Africa where she witnessed apartheid and saw democracy unfolding, her career as a “corporate machine” in the fashion industry to a stay-at-home mom of three young children when she came to the Netherlands. To put it in her own words; moving to the Netherlands was a humbling experience to start with a whole new blank canvas, including the struggle between what you were used to, and what will come without knowing.

She also tells about the difficulties she has faced in her search for a new job and how she finally became the current marketing manager of a distribution company specializing in representing exclusive timepieces and accessory brands.

Next to her full-time job, Ghanaan leads a non-profit organization for women which she co-founded 3 years ago. She often shares her story of un-belonging and integration; how to get comfortable in an uncomfortable place has serendipitously become her signature skill.

You will also hear how she redefined what was important to her versus what is important now, and how her value system changed since moving here, including tools she has acquired of re-belonging and integration into a new society.

Life is a constant process of recreation and re-invention, and according to her, is what makes it so messy and absolutely extraordinary.

Instagram: @ghanaan
Facebook: Ghanaan Edwards
Website HourLux: https://www.hourlux.com
Website NPO Arnhem Together: https://arnhemtogether.nl/