Embracing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the MENA / SWANA Region

Welcome to Siyaq Solutions, a pioneering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) consultancy dedicated to addressing the unique challenges and opportunities within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) regions. Our team is committed to empowering organizations and individuals to embrace diversity and foster inclusive environments by providing tailored, context-specific solutions.

Arabic patterns inside Alhambra

Mission and Values

At Siyaq Solutions, our mission is to empower organizations in the MENA / SWANA region to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion by providing context-specific, culturally-rooted solutions that promote understanding, respect, and equal opportunities for all. We are committed to upholding our core values in every aspect of our work:

Active Inclusiveness

We strive for proactive inclusivity by providing multiple communication platforms and ensuring that our work is accessible and digestible to all stakeholders.

Compassionate Accountability

We approach accountability with empathy and compassion, giving each other the benefit of the doubt and operating from a place of fewer assumptions.

Radical Openness

We prioritize open dialogue and learning, challenging ourselves and each other to grow beyond political correctness and navigate the complexities of language and sensitivities together.

 
 

Our Story

Siyaq Solutions is a new organisation, established in 2023, as one of the first Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) consultancies that provides various services across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), also known as Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA). We aim to help organisations in the region address the unique challenges related to DEI. Siyaq Solutions is committed to providing solutions that are rooted in the rich cultural heritage of the region and informed by centuries-long practices and values of community-building, community-enhancement, conflict resolution, mediation, and horizontal leadership and decision-making that transcend identities such as class, gender, and social status. The field of DEI has emerged in the past few years to respond to urgent organisational needs addressing challenges related to how employees are treated by their employers, gaps in privilege, access to resources, ability to participate in decision-making, ability to achieve mobility within the organisation, etc. While the aims of DEI can be universal, the solutions to tackling DEI topics tend to be context-specific. Hence the name of the company, Siyaq, which means context.

Our Approach

Siyaq Solutions develops customised services, strategic solutions, training, and transformative tools and products that are tailored to meet the specific needs and context of each client. We aim to do that by drawing inspiration from the region’s rich cultural and scholarly heritage to provide solutions that are rooted in the local context rather than importing premade templates from the Western context, Siyaq leverages the region’s unique knowledge and experiences to create strategic solutions that are relevant and effective. Our approach will focus on building bridges between academia, lived experiences and the workplace while maintaining accessibility and avoiding any hyper intellectualization of information. We are not here to impose political correctness, we are here to get uncomfortable and get past the minefield of awkward language and potential insensitivities.

 

Siyaq Solutions values horizontal leadership and inclusiveness in its approach, Our solutions prioritise the perspectives of all stakeholders, particularly those who are of historically marginalised backgrounds, using an intersectional perspective. This means that in our collaboration, we take into account the different forms of inequality and how they interlink, and understand how this connects to your corporate approach and team dynamics.  Finally, aside from providing services in English, Siyaq Solutions delivers products and training in Arabic and other indigenous languages in the MENA / SWANA region, taking into consideration differences between dialects.