Meet the 2020 Fellows

Zubeir Ahmed

Zubeir is a third-year student at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus (UTSC) majoring in Health Studies and minoring in Political Science and Public Law. Over the past couple of years, he has been involved with the Human Resources Alliance at UTSC where he is currently the Vice-President of Project Management. During his time at the Human Resource Alliance he co-developed the Membership Program – a professional development program aimed at aiding students throughout the entire job seeking process, including: resume creation, mock interviews, and company research. In his spare time, he enjoys watching sports and is a youth basketball coach with the Muslim Basketball Association. Through this fellowship, he is excited to gain a better understanding of the municipal political system in order to increase civic engagement of Muslim youth and to ensure their voices are heard as a community.

Aini Gauhar

Aini is a graduate of the University of Toronto, studying International Development Studies and Public Policy, where she was also active as Vice-President of the Pakistan Development Foundation. Aini has close to two years of experience working in provincial and municipal policy-making settings, including the Ministry of Education, former Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, and in the office of Councillor Neethan Shan through the Trailblazer program. She has worked in Cape Town with an organization dedicated to decreasing the tech labour gap in the city, whilst empowering young and racialized women to leverage technology. She aims to achieve systemic-level change and strategy design informed by ground knowledge, with the hope of building just and equitable urban futures. Through the fellowship, Aini is eager to work with fellow city builders who have a vested stake in community-capacity building, and aims to utilize thoughtful lenses to help formulate and challenge policies that shape our lives.

Fatima Khan

Fatima is a community organizer that has predominantly worked in youth program planning and development for more than four years now. Through her work, Fatima encourages young people to become civically engaged by helping them address issues that are important to them and their communities. As an organizer with Apathy is Boring, Fatima mobilized young people to go out and vote during the federal elections of 2019. With Youth Challenge International, she works to address climate change issues in Toronto as a project lead. Being a Daughter of the Vote Delegate representing her federal riding, Fatima gives back to her community by organizing safe spaces and programs for Muslim girls aimed to foster individual empowerment and address gendered Islamophobia. As a Fellow, Fatima wants to grasp a better understanding of municipal politics in hopes to make it easier for citizen and youth participation from her community in formal governmental bodies and processes.

Maryan Mahamed

Maryan is a community organizer and youth mentor based in Etobicoke. As a former youth outreach worker for grassroots organizations, Maryan has developed a passion for ensuring equitable access to education for racialized youth, working to support their pursuit of higher education. She mentors grade 12 students at her local mosque as they consider their next steps. Currently, Maryan is a student at York University completing a post-graduate certificate in Advanced Data Science and Predictive Analytics. Through the Fellowship, she hopes to gain a better understanding of municipal governance and highlight key concerns regarding data, public policy and the Muslim community.

Bilqees Mohamed

Bilqees Mohamed is a researcher, writer, and current social work student at Ryerson University. She is passionate about youth justice, specifically around learning how policy-making practices can be more accessible to Black communities, from an intersectional lens.  In the past year, she supported the Coalition for Alternatives to Streaming in Education (CASE) – which focuses on advocacy relating to the disproportionate impacts of academic streaming on racialized and low- income student – through her role as Project Coordinator. Her interests have led her to England and New York, where she was part of a social innovation project that seeks to document the ways community services navigate and resist systemic challenges whilst supporting communities. Bilqees’ current research project involves mapping the systemic issue of gun violence in our city as addressed by multi-sectoral partners and services. Bilqees hopes to continue the process of learning and unlearning, both as a social work student and a student of life.

Nadia Bayram

Nadia is a recent graduate of Ryerson University’s Bachelor of Social Work program. Through her program's mandatory practicum component, Nadia has worked in multiple areas within the social service sector. This encompassed assisting an Outreach Counsellor at Women’s Habitat Etobicoke with support programs and counselling for survivors of domestic violence. Additionally, Nadia also participated as a Community Development Support Worker to increase local connections in the community and community consultations addressing the lack of affordable housing in Toronto. Furthermore, Nadia worked as an organizer for Progress Toronto advocating for more democratic, just, and progressive policy decisions in Toronto. She has also been a lifelong volunteer for the Bosnian Islamic Center, and a tutor for Pathways to Education-Rexdale. Nadia hopes to participate in increasing diverse Muslim representation in political institutions and processes through dismantling barriers to politics and creating more community-based processes through the Fellowship.

Kandeel Imran

Kandeel Imran is a third-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) majoring in City Studies and Public Policy, and minoring in Critical Migration Studies. Currently, she is the elected student representative for the department of Human Geography in the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union. She is also involved with the Law Society of UTSC as the Vice President of Outreach, engaging students on campus interested in the field of law. This summer she worked as the Community Program Assistant at Heritage Toronto, a City of Toronto agency and non-profit organization dedicated to advocating for the recognition of the history and cultural heritage of Toronto neighbourhoods through walking tours, plaques, and awards. In her free time, she volunteers with her campus food bank, which serves students in need of fresh and healthy food. She is interested in transit equity, community capacity-building, and civic engagement in immigrant suburbs.

Sana Khawaja

Sana Khawaja is a community advocate with experience in on-the-ground political engagement, professional communications, and has garnered extensive experience working within the Canadian Muslim community to support and advocate for greater participation in civic engagement. Sana’s work experience in the non-profit sector allows her to understand the pulse of local issues, develop research methods that sufficiently determine the needs of the people, and establish programs designed to create productive dialogue, engagement, awareness, and appropriate recommendations. She is proud to be fortunate enough to humbly contribute to the development and growth of the Canadian Muslim community. Going forward, she intends to strengthen and showcase the Muslim community as one of faith, justice, and as earnest servicemen and women for all our neighbours.

Amal Mohamed

Amal is a community organizer and student at York University, where she studies Law & Society, with a strong focus on human rights and social reform. Through her experience as a program facilitator and curriculum developer at Visions of Science Network for Learning (VoSNL), Amal hopes to reduce barriers that inhibit marginalized youth from access to equitable education. She has also worked alongside various non-for-profit student run initiatives such as The Ascend Network (TAN) and Black Researchers Initiative to Empower (B.R.I.T.E), which both help to bridge the gap between under-represented students and their transition to higher education. As an aspiring documentarian, Amal intends to blend film culture, social advocacy, and politics to reframe the current narrative surrounding racialized communities in Canada. Through the Muslim Youth Fellowship, Amal hopes to gain the necessary skills to effectively advocate for marginalized communities.

Arezoo Najibzadeh

Arezoo is a rising voice for women’s civic and political participation in Canada. As the co-founder and Executive Director of Young Women’s Leadership Network, she works with young women leaders and civic institutions to identify and address barriers to young women’s engagement and success within grassroots and institutional politics. Since 2015, Arezoo has built civic leadership capacity among 1000+ young marginalized women. As a consultant and personal coach, Arezoo regularly works with millennial candidates in municipal and provincial politics to centre mental wellness and authenticity on the campaign trail, on top of providing strategic communications and fundraising advice. She regularly appears before civic institutions to speak on issues impacting young women and girls' leadership, most recently the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women, The World Forum for Democracy at the Council of Europe, and the Platform Women Convention in Washington, D.C.