Karima كريمة Kadaoui

In a sort of a similar way that our eyes evoke the sunshine and our ears evoke the melodies of life, when we learn to see our reality with different eyes and to hear with the deep listening of our soul, we evoke and invoke our Humanity. As a Tamkeen Facilitator and lived experience researcher, I have the privilege to witness how the trust in our human potential and unconditional love create the conditions for societal metamorphosis. Tamkeen was co-founded after almost two years of introspection, co-reflection with a phenomenological perspective, and lived experience research of its founding members. The outcome of this process was the emergence of new questions that guided us to the realisation, with our team members and partners, of the Tamkeen Approach. A new paradigm of existence (understood as being, becoming and seeking), thought and action, trusting our Humanity and realising the existentiality of love opened its window of new possibilities. The arabic word Tamkeen تمكين is often used to translate empowerment. However, this verbal noun does not bear in its root the meaning of ‘power’ which sets a dualistic dynamic (having vs not having power, giving vs taking power, gaining vs losing power). In "Tamkeen" we hear and cohere Imkan (potential), Momkin (possible) and Imkania (possibility), makan (place), makeen (safe, nurturing). The Tamkeen approach manifests in the experience of the expression of our human potential. The potential to trust our Humanity, which defines us and connects us to the whole beyond our conscious grasp. When expressed it transcends us into our creative immanence. We “could have” called the evolution of the Tamkeen Process “orchestrated serendipity”, the orchestration’s nature being our trust in our Humanity. Its shape being the strength of our intent (nia), our love (hob) and our patience (sabr). These are the oligo-elements of the soil in which trust was able to grow. We say “could have” as we now know that what can seem at times, to us and to our partners, as being of an extraordinary coincidence or even magical, to the point of rendering us speechless, is in fact emergence with its subtle interplay with dissolvence: the wondrous complex workings of life in love with life.