“I'm sorry, Mrs. Tiara, but we can't admit a fat, deformed girl."
Those were the words a nursery school teacher spoke when she first saw young Caroline Tiara standing beside her mother. For a child living with clubfoot, knock knees, and who is also “fat", that moment of rejection could easily have shaped a very different future.
Instead, it became the beginning of a lifelong commitment to ensuring that no student ever feels rejected or unseen.
Today, Caroline serves as Manager -Student Affairs at Aga Khan University, but the memory of that day has never fully left her. What she remembers most, however, is not the cruelty of the teacher's words, but the wisdom her mother shared afterward.
On the way home, her mother asked Caroline to stand in front of a mirror and describe what she saw.
“I told her I saw my beautiful self," Caroline recalls.
Her mother gently asked, “Do you see a fat, deformed girl?"
Caroline shook her head.
“Then it's only in their minds," her mother told her. “You are beautiful and bright."
That moment became a defining lesson in how Caroline would see herself and how she would see others.
At school, she naturally gravitated toward classmates who were mocked, excluded, or ignored. Where others turned away, Caroline stepped closer.
“I would hug them and tell them they were good enough," she says. “I didn't want anyone else to feel the way I had felt."
Her career first led her into banking, then into the technology sector, but Caroline never lost her passion for helping others grow. When she eventually transitioned into higher education, she discovered her true purpose was working with students.
“To me, equality is something you live out in everyday interactions, especially in how you support young women finding their place at university."
She recalls meeting a first-year female student during orientation who seemed unusually quiet while others confidently navigated the new environment. When Caroline gently checked in, the student admitted she felt overwhelmed and unsure how to navigate many of the campus systems.
Recognizing her fear of standing out or making mistakes, Caroline took time to guide her through the basics of campus life and ensured she wasn't left to figure things out alone during those first uncertain days.
“These are things many people adjust to quickly," Caroline says. “But when someone is entering a new environment, having someone guide you can make all the difference."
Through moments like these, Caroline helps create a space where female students feel confident, supported, and able to thrive. It reflects the values that shape the student experience at Aga Khan University: dignity, inclusion, and opportunity. Students from different communities, faiths, and life experiences learn and grow together.
“We make a deliberate effort to bring everyone together," Caroline says. “Students arrive with different stories and experiences, but once they are here, they belong to one community; they are AKU students."
That sense of belonging has shaped Caroline's own journey as a woman at the University, where she says she has been supported to grow professionally and help the next generation of students, especially young women, find their confidence.
As the world marked International Women's Day, Caroline said she hopes her work shows that empowerment often begins with simple acts of encouragement and creating spaces where women feel seen and valued.
It is a lesson she first learned from her mother many years ago, and one she now shares with every student who walks through her door: you are enough, and your story matters.
