Aisha Hannibal

1. What do Red Tents mean to you
Red Tents are about laying out a welcome mat to everyone. I believe through creating places where women can come together, be met with an openness and a fierce acceptance it creates robust and tangible community which allows for the bend and flex of life. Red Tents form a level of connection with women everywhere who gather under its open arms and has the power to transform the fibres of society to make it okay to live and breathe as women in the world.

2. What do you do in Red Tent Directory
I am one of its co-founders along with MaryAnn. It began when I realised that although I had started a Red Tent in my locality there was many women who would not know where to begin to create their own or where to look to find one. I wanted to make the hidden visible and thereby accessible. I am Operations Lead which means I support our team, coordinate our work and encourage our ideas to flourish into ways which reach more women and enable them to share what they bring to their communities.

3. How do Red Tents inform your wider work and life
Red Tents have taught me so much about community and navigating all the complexities of what it is to show up and lean in. They have brought many friends into my life and helped me to be still. But more than anything they inform the way I see the world. I work in the charity sector in local community engagement and campaigning for change. I can honestly say that I have limitless hope based on what I know is possible from sitting in red tents and realising that we are the same, we are different and the threads of all that unspoken conversation is our potential.

4. If you had to describe yourself as a plant, mineral or animal what would it be and why?
I think I am akin to mycelium which is the mass of fungi within ecosystems such as forests that provides a mutually beneficial transaction of water and nutrients spreading it to where it is needed. It is the great invisible transference of resources that enables the whole to function and this is really how I see my work with Red Tent Directory and friendships and family and my wider work. I am not the trees but I nourish and enable the forest to grow strong and blossom brightly.