Elmira Ibragimova
Elmira Ibragimova: "If we want to reach a new level, we should all be united by a single goal – to think about the future and what we will leave to the next generation"
Elmira Ibragimova, head physician of the Salve dental network, President of the NGO "Healthy Society", took part in the program "Women-leader" of the MoscowManagement WorkshopSenezh and the Presidential Platform "Russia is a country of opportunities." Women entrepreneurs and heads of public organizations participated in the program.
"Active participation in the "Woman Leader" program and in the events of the Senezh management workshop startes a year ago. On March 4, 2020, by invitation, I took part in the forum "Women's health is well-being of the nation", which took place in Moscow. Having met with leaders, public figures, I realized that active people are valued by society and it is very important for all of us to see our potential and develop it.
Then I decided to be even more active, initiative and openly talk about my goals, tasks of a public organization, strategies for developing myself as a leader. As a result, I reached the "Woman Leader" program, and at the beginning of 2021, the training session of the program started.
It was online training. In total, more than 140 women fr om 35 regions took part in it. Active leaders fr om all over our country gathered together. If a year before heads of regions did the training, the second one included active women who had previously participated in various projects of Senezh and were even awarded some titles.
The program consisted of four modules. During the first module, the following areas were analyzed: "Who am I?", "What are my values?", "What are our values?", "What are we going to?". In the second module, we were divided into teams, it was interesting to watch ourselves, our team, how we are changing. After that, we had a block of training events on project activities, creation of social projects.
Modules 3 and 4 included deep team work to identify common values, to determine the topic that is interesting to us, and to present the project to society.
Our project team had a topic related to children, their presence on the Internet. I joined a team of 5 people.
How did your participation in the program affect you?
You know, there is something that we possess, but we are not fully aware of its strength and power. Such skills include an ability to be an entrepreneur – to solve any tasks at any level using competent organization, time management and structuring. For a person who sees the ultimate goal, entrepreneurship skills are very important.
By taking part in the program, we managed to fully apply existing skills and abilities. I was glad that I contributed to teamwork. There was an opportunity to think and move forward on a larger scale, not only within the framework of our city of Surgut, I observed how many talented, creative women, leaders, public and business figures are in each region, their activity and usefulness is accepted by society. Therefore, for me, this is a new horizon that has opened up, and it gives me the opportunity to observe my own development. And of course, now my task is to scale my skills and abilities.
Tell us about your social project "Healthy Society".
"Healthy Society" is our social project, which was born after I visited the forum "Women's Health as well-being of the nation", its goal is to help the population, educate, inform about prevention of diseases.
The "Healthy Society" has a strong initiative team that strives for self-development, achieving its goals, and most importantly, works with real people to prevent diseases and sometimes in treatment.
National project initiated by the President of the Russian Federation includes involvement of public organizations and associations, active citizens and medical community to solve tasks of implementing projects and programs in the regions. "Healthy Society" perfectly fits into these national tasks, engaging volunteers, including doctors, cooperation with other public organizations, executive and legislative authorities, mass media and the public.
"Healthy Society" plans to attract new people to work, "package" projects and promote them to other regions. At the moment, the branches of NGOs are operating in Khanty-Mansiysk, Moscow and Rostov-on-Don. The organization will develop its network in Russia so that everyone can find a place in a "Healthy society", regardless of the region wh ere they are located.
The project has three areas: screening, bone marrow donation and somnology. What is the reason for this choice?
Now the non-profit organization implements three global projects. Global-because they affect the interests of not only Ugra residents, but also many Russians.
The first project is screening of cervix for detection of cancer, the second is somnology, the third is bone marrow donation. Practicing doctors helped to develop and implement these initiatives working "on the ground". They are those who have the opportunity to keep statistics, communicate with specific patients, observe how the disease proceeds, track the effectiveness of treatment."
The relevance of the projects is confirmed by federal and regional data provided by the Ministry of Healthcare and the regional Department of Healthcare.
We see how many cases of diseases are detected by colleagues, how prevention and treatment of these diseases is going. Of course, the assistance that we provide (informational, preventive, patronage) is very important. But within the framework of the problem of the Russian and international scale – I would like to work more. At the moment, we are just one non-profit organization-a drop in the ocean. On the other hand, "Healthy Society" has a desire to help and an opportunity to act with free hands: to engage in prevention and communicate with different segments of the population, civil servants and the deputy corps, including them in its system of work.
Once I went to a dental forum in China and I managed to learn about its culture and medicine. Prevention is so competently built there, whereas in our country the disease comes to treatment when it is already started, in a mild, moderate or already severe degree.
Chinese culture and Eastern medicine focus on prevention. Any disease can be prevented if you start working with it and start catching the first signals and symptoms.
Therefore, somnology is an area that gives the first impulse about the state of health on which you need to focus. In Russia, this direction is not particularly developed yet, and in America, for example, there are entire institutions and they are deeply studying this subject. Nevertheless, I met with doctors from the National Medical Research Center named after V. A. Almazov ( St. Petersburg), who are ready to conduct open online webinars that inform people how to behave correctly and what to pay attention to in a particular situation. A series of educational lectures is being prepared, which will be posted on the Internet and in social networks.
Do you think that disease prevention will appear in our country and in our mentality?
We have all the prerequisites for this, and the pandemic has accelerated this process – now everyone is talking about a healthy lifestyle, proper nutrition, and so on. The whole world has fallen into a state of discomfort, and as we know, not a comfortable zone is a growth zone, so now it is important to send the necessary messages and signals to society. Improvement of the nation's health, creation of jobs and, as a result, positioning of our country at the world level will also improve. If we want to reach a new level, we should all be united by a single goal – to think about the future and what we will leave to the next generation.
What would you recommend women who just want to launch a business?
First, before starting a business, it is necessary to fully immerse yourself in the industry, in the area in which the business project will develop. Attract like-minded people, the team that suits you and likes you, find yourself a mentor, a mentor who will accompany and advise. Business needs a base of knowledge and skills that will appear only as a result of practice.
If you feel your power, capital, energy and a good financial reserves, then you can immediately think about opening a larger project. If you are not sure that this project will work, then it is better to test it first, with minimal investment, to see how the project will manifest itself in the market, how society will accept it. And yet, to track trends, innovations and changes in the market as much as possible. The market today is not the same as it was 3 years ago, it is completely different and dictates different rules.
I have three powerful ships sailing in business: the dental company is 20 years old, beauty business is 5 years old, the gift company is 3 years old. Medicine is relatively stable in any period and does not change its direction, adjustments are needed in the beauty business, taking into account the laws, but in the gift company we had to switch abruptly to online sales and therefore these innovations and trends should always be tracked.
Wh ere do you get energy and how do you manage not to burn out?
There are my personal little joys when the child inside me is happy, for example, to be in nature with a cup of tea or coffee. I can gather the children, cook kebabs, go to a forest and have a picnic. In addition, when I am with children, I am filled with a sense of motherhood, family energy.
I feel good when I get new, useful information and can share it, direct it in the right way. Because the worst thing is that we consume a lot of information and there comes a time when we are so "saturated" that can take nothing more.
It is necessary to absorb the information, energy that is needed at a certain point in time. That's when there will be a balance, and when you accept, but do not realize, there is an imbalance and the person burns out.
But moments of solitude are also important in order to understand or at least hear yourself. It can also be gardening, sports, yoga. At this time, we work on ourselves, think about ourselves and begin to hear and listen to ourselves.