Reclaim Her Career

Rummana spent nine years in operations before she stepped away when her second child was born. She expected to be gone for six months. It became two years.

"The technical part came back fast," she says. "What took longer was believing I still belonged in the room." She started attending the group's monthly AMA sessions before she'd even updated her CV, mostly to hear how other women talked about their gap out loud.

She's now back in a management role at a mid-size logistics firm, three days a week in the office and two remote. Her advice to anyone starting the search: "Don't wait until the gap feels justified. It never will. Apply anyway."

Farhana was a graphic designer before her break and assumed freelancing meant starting from zero. It didn't. Her first client came from a former colleague who remembered her work three years later.

"Nobody tells you the hardest part isn't the design work, it's the invoicing and the awkward first pitch email," she laughs. She used the group's shared templates for client proposals and rate cards to get her footing.

She now works with four regular clients on a rolling basis, fitting hours around school pickup. "It's not the career I had. It's a career I chose this time."

Tania started baking to fill the hours between naps. Neighbours asked to buy what she made. Eighteen months later, it was a registered business with a small kitchen team.

"I never planned this as a career move," she says. "It became one because I kept saying yes to the next order." The hardest part wasn't the baking, it was pricing her own time fairly, something she credits a group discussion thread for helping her work through.

Three years on, she runs a five-person operation from a rented kitchen space and is training two of her employees, both also returning mothers, in the business side of things.

Shabnam applied to a returnship programme after fourteen months away from banking, expecting a long shot. She was one of a small cohort accepted.

"Having six months of structure, a mentor, and colleagues in the exact same position mattered more than the paycheck," she says. The programme paired her with a manager trained specifically in phased reintegration, which she says changed how her first weeks back actually felt.

She converted to a full-time role at the end of the programme and now mentors the newest cohort informally, answering questions in the group most weekends.

Ishrat turned down a full-time offer the first time it came, six months after her break began. "Everyone told me I was crazy to say no," she says. She negotiated a part-time contract instead.

That year of part-time work let her rebuild routines at home before adding full working hours back in. "I needed proof to myself that I could do it before I promised an employer I could."

She's now full-time at the same company, in a role with more responsibility than the one she left. "Gradual wasn't slower. It was just honest about what the transition actually takes."

Nasrin had ten years in retail management before her break. When she started looking again, the retail hours on offer weren't compatible with school pickup, so she decided to retrain instead.

She completed a six-week digital marketing cohort, the same kind the group runs scholarships for, while still on her break. "I was the oldest person in the room and the only mother. I almost didn't go back after week one."

She now works as a marketing coordinator for a small agency, fully remote. "The field is different. The confidence I needed to walk in was exactly the same."