Meet Ghyda Helou

We recently connected with Ghyda Helou and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ghyda , really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

I found my purpose when I looked back at one of my childhood memories.
I remember cutting papers at school and I had a big smile on my face. I cut the perfect shapes, and noticed everyone else was struggling. Then I looked at my parent’s faces and they were so proud of me.

Everything fell into place at that moment and during this phase I was finishing my masters degree in architecture, developing my artistic style and discovering whom I am as a creative person. What I noticed was that we are all cutouts, from a certain setting, environment, culture, background, and somehow we ended up being within a particular setting, during a particular time frame. And my love for paper cutouts and collage, became bigger and wider in range. I became interested in collaging moments, with diverse people in them.

It felt like a bigger composition on a larger canvas.

I have this phrase I always say to myself: My life is a collage, it’s the composition that makes it worthwhile.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Aside from being a collage artist, giving collage workshops and selling my work during exhibitions and through online platforms, I am the founder of Jarak Online. Jarak Online is a safe social platform, online and offline, where people connect, share experiences, exchange knowledge, and collaborate together.

We have collaborated with talented creatives from our community on several eco-friendly products, all locally made. Additionally, we have organized numerous workshops and events to learn from and share special moments together.

So far, we’ve listened to more than 600 people, whom we now call ‘Neighbors’, share their stories with us on our social media platform @jarakonline. They shared about their life, work, cooking, dancing, drawing, plants, education, and much much more beneficial subjects.

Stay tuned, soon we will be launching our fourth product, in collaboration with a local artisan from our community.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Courage.

Many social restrictions can block our way to move forward, such as, being a woman, with all what comes with it with norms and expectations, the duty of getting married before a certain age and focusing on family instead of dreams and goals.
Deciding to change career, from working as an architect to exploring a completely new path, either the artistic path of collage or managing a community of people and curating events, workshops, programs, and products to their benefits. These decisions, at first, were faced by many skepticism. It took a lot of effort to have people see what I see and believe in my vision.

Empathy and Understanding.

Managing a community with diverse people in it needs someone with empathic abilities, that allows him/her to understand people, the way they behave and the reason behind their actions. As well as being an artist I listen to people ‘s stories, get inspired by them and create beauty out of their journeys.

Creativity and Organization

I put these 2 skills together because, it is one thing to be creative and totally different thing to be organized. But combining the two qualities together creates a very powerful skill. To creatively be organized and to find structure in creativity. This skill works on a social level. It helps many other people fit into the world you are creating and invites inclusivity.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

The whole concept of Jarak is collaborations. We are always on the lookout for interesting people to join our community, teach us new skills, introduce us to new inventions and cultures, to inspire us and push the community forward.
It can be a collaboration on a product, workshop, event, sponsoring a program, being partner on a specific subject. Anything that we feel will be beneficial to the community, we are ready for it!
The can reach out to us through either:
email : [email protected]
Instagram message: @jarakonline

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jarakonline.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jarakonline/?hl=en

Image Credits

I took all the pictures ( Ghyda Helou )