“Fiiri means ‘to look’ or ‘to see’ in Somali, and that is what we’re about – demanding that we see all the people who are usually under represented and ignored.” So says Mona Mohammed Ali of Fiiri, Scandinavia’s first diverse model and talent agency for BIPOC, by BIPOC. “We’re not just an agency, we’re a community. That’s the key thing – we are friends, we support each other, we love each other, and it feels good to be part of that.” Ali only established Fiiri a year ago in Stockholm and yet she’s already expanded across the region, garnered international press and been appointed Vogue Scandinavia’s diversity and inclusion editor. All thanks to her unstoppable dedication to supporting individuals from every minority ethnicity, background and ability – both in front of and behind the camera.  

Ali’s own story makes her a positive role model for those she now supports. Born in Somalia during civil war, her family were forced to flee, first to Saudi Arabia, then Kenya before four-year-old Ali and her elder brother were sent to join their aunt in Norrköping, Sweden.“We experienced a lot of racism. People crossed the street when they saw us and put explosives in our mailbox. At school kids would say that if I took my headscarf off, they’d stop bullying me,” she remembers.“It was difficult to be a young Muslim woman but I learnt that the angrier you get, the more controlled you become. I refused to believe that I should simply be grateful to be alivea nd that this life was all I was supposed to be.”