43 WOTYA 2025 womanthismonth.com | JANUARY 2026 Winner of the Woman in Content Creation category at the Woman of the Year Awards 2025, Mehreen Fatima is a mother, storyteller and influencer whose work centres on the honest, unfiltered realities of motherhood, career and personal transformation. Through her content and entrepreneurial ventures, she has built a community rooted in authenticity, resilience and selfbelief. What was a moment during the ceremony that felt most meaningful to you? One of the most meaningful moments for me came after I won. Almost every woman I passed in the hall stopped to congratulate me, hug me and offer genuine compliments. It was overwhelming in the most beautiful way. That was the moment I truly understood what people mean when they talk about women empowering one another and lifting each other up. My husband noticed it too. He later told me how proud he felt seeing women address me by name and celebrate my journey. Were there any reactions from family, team, or community that surprised you? My husband’s reaction surprised me deeply. He was emotional, incredibly proud, and genuinely moved by the way other women celebrated my win. Seeing people recognise me by name and speak about my work with respect made him realise the impact of my journey. The most touching moment, however, came the next morning. I have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, and when she woke up, I showed her my award and told her I had gone to a party, met friends and won it. She looked at it and said, “Wow mama, your award is so beautiful,” before proudly showing it to our house help and saying, “Look, ‘mama-award’ is so nice.” That moment stayed with me. Since the day I won, my trophy has been placed at the entrance of our home, the first thing you see when you walk in. It is a reminder I get to live with every day. How has winning informed your priorities or plans since the awards night? Winning gave me clarity and confidence to lean fully into my candle business. I run Waxora Candle Supplies and Pour Studio, and I hold a professional candle instructor certification from South Korea, making it one of a kind in the Gulf, particularly in Bahrain. Since the awards night, I have received immense support, brand collaborations and increased engagement, all of which have directly contributed to the growth of my business. How will you use the prize, platform, or network that came with this award? I plan to collaborate with other women-owned businesses connected through Woman This Month and the Woman of the Year 2025 network. My goal is to host more workshops, expand my professional courses, and eventually organise a corporate candle-making workshop with Porsche and other major sponsors. Reaching that stage would be a defining milestone in my career. What concrete next steps or milestones are you committing to in the next 12 months? My goals include growing my Instagram and TikTok platforms to 100,000 organic followers each, launching a YouTube channel focused on real-life women empowerment through honest, podcast-style conversations, and scaling Pour Studio to the point where I can move into a dedicated studio space. What is one piece of advice you would give to young women looking up to you now that you have won? Rejection is redirection. If anyone has ever told you that you cannot have it all, you can. You absolutely can. Women have been conditioned for centuries to stay humble and never be too much, but you are meant to be too much. You can have a career, a partner, children, hobbies, passions, financial independence, new degrees and dreams that continue to evolve. At the same time, my advice to younger women is not to rely solely on social media as a lifelong career or source of validation. Share what you want, how you want, but never give strangers control over your worth. Invest in your skills, creativity, financial independence and personal growth. Social media should be a tool, not the foundation of who you are.
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