Greetings Lean In Community!

Happy Chinese New Year to the Lean In Community!

The new year signifies another new beginning. Although the Chinese New Year celebrations have ended, we would like to wish our fellow Lean In members an amazing and prosperous year ahead, with the best of health, wealth, joy and happiness!

We kickstarted 2020 with a Circle Dialogue titled "Sexual Harassment: Let’s Talk About It", in response to the Sexual Harassment Bill which was resubmitted by the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality in October 2018 that is yet to be tabled in the Dewan Rakyat.

We would like to express our gratitude to the participants for coming together as a community in this fight for a safer and more equal and inclusive world! Also a special shoutout to the panellists, Sumitra Visvanathan, Hetal Doshi and Emellia Shariff who spent their Saturday morning sharing their professional and personal experiences with all of us.

Let’s march together and we look forward to unlocking more achievements with you this year!

With love,

  
Meera & Mei Ping
Co-Head of Finance
Asia Women Circle @ Lean In Org

Our first Circle Dialogue of the year witnessed 30 people coming together as a community in spreading awareness and normalising the topic of sexual harassment. The purpose of the dialogue was to create a vulnerable space and sharing session to define sexual harassment and to understand the impact sexual harassment can have on an individual and the roles played by different parties in combating it.

  

Our panel speakers, Sumitra Visvanathan (Founder of Women’s Aid Organisation), Hetal Doshi (Founder of Psych-O) and Emellia Shariff (Consultant on Identifying, Preventing & Dealing with Sexual Harassment) were instrumental in delivering their message and sharing in regards to this controversial topic. Hetal asked the floor the question, "Who here in this room has been sexually harassed?", and the majority of the participants raised their hands. It was a liberating moment because it highlighted one key message: there is no need to be afraid because you are not alone in this.

  

The highlight of the event and key takeaway from the dialogue was on defining your own healing process and what companies can start doing while waiting for a proper system to be in place.

Some participants were brave enough to share their experience and heroic stories on how they tackled their experience of sexual harassment and how they kept their composure and healed from the experience.

Maria, the hostess shared her Lingzhi Coffee with everyone and informed them of the benefits of the wonderful coffee.

Lean In Malaysia Sabah had their first meeting of 2020 on 11 January at a Circle member's house. Katherine led the meeting by saying: "Today is the perfect day to be happy, to get creative and to enjoy planning as we go along. Like the flowers that have five petals, let's start the New Year with five ways to guide us to whatever it is that we are doing or planning to do for the day, week, month or even for the year."

The five ways are:
1. Listen to what is going on around you;
2. Look with spirituality and faith;
3. Look around you, there are opportunities;
4. Stand up and be counted, be confident and be independent;
5. Move On, let go and free yourself.

Throw off everything that hinders you and run with perseverance. If the past does not bring happiness in life, let it go. If the past is not constructive, let it go. If it does not let yoy grow, let it go. If it does not propel you to go forward, let it go. Break the chain, press on, see the big picture and stay connected.