Meet the Members of the Mississauga Centre MP Youth Council for 2019:

Humaima Ashfaque

York University

Humaima Ashfaque is an inexhaustible leader and inspiration to her fellow students and the rest of the York U community. She is the Student Project Ambassador at York University’s Syria Response and Refugee Initiative (SRRI), Events and Campaigns Director at Amnesty International at York, Student Refugee Program Coordinator at World University Services of Canada (WUSC) – York Keele Campus, a member of the Canadian Council for Refugees Youth Network and an Outreach Director at Islamic Relief at York University.

Humaima helps to start, coordinate and lead many York University initiatives on the refugee and human rights front, including those with strong links to the Ryerson University Lifeline Syria Challenge. Working with Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR)-inspired Refugees Welcome Here! Campaign also held a successful winter clothing drive for the local FCJ Refugee Centre. Humaima, helps to coordinate this campaign which involves many student groups on the York Campus working on refugee issues.

She hopes to combine her knowledge in Global Health and Refugee Policy to create sustainable long – term development projects for vulnerable population, as well as making healthcare accessible for everyone. She believes that MCYC will help her encourage youth in her city to be actively involved in fighting for social justice and to ensure that the Youth are at the centre of creating a change and positive impact to the Canadian Mosaic.

Qusay AL Refai

University of Toronto Mississauga

Qusay Al Refai is a second year Commerce student at the University of Toronto Mississauga. He arrived in Canada two years ago and since then he has been volunteering with SAV Canada, an immigrant resettlement agency. He participated and volunteered in public events and information sessions that aim to integrate the Syrian refugees in Canadian society. He is passionate about learning more about the political process and was actively involved in the provincial and municipal elections last year, as a volunteer leader and organizer for political campaigns. He enjoys playing soccer and is working on improving his skills in chess.

As a member of the 2019 MCYC, he is looking forward to learning more about public policy in Canadian politics and aims to work on and address issues that concern Canadian youth.

Abdullah Khan

University of Oxford Alumni

Abdullah recently graduated from the University of Oxford with a masters in Global Governance and Diplomacy. Prior to this, he studied Economics and International Relations at the University of Toronto. He was active at his university and oversaw elections and pushed for initiatives to promote racial equality. He is currently working for a tech startup in Toronto and will be heading to law school in the fall. Abdullah is grateful for having the opportunity to serve on the Mississauga-Centre Youth Council and hopes to advocate for measures to reduce youth unemployment, and for measures to strike a balance between reducing carbon emissions and ensuring economic growth.

Fayha Najeed

University of Toronto

Fayha is currently a first-year student at the University of Toronto in the Munk One program at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. At school, she is the First-Year Representative on the Association of Political Science students.

Through the Munk One program, Fayha conducted her own research for four months on youth involvement in politics. Through her research, she was made aware of the benefits of youth councils and so, she decided to apply to the youth council in her own federal riding.

Previously, Fayha worked as a Director on the International Humanitarian Peel Youth Council to raise awareness and funds for Red Cross initiatives. She was Secretary General for her school's Model United Nations delegation and was the Chair of a program called Peer Mentoring.

Recently, Fayha was chosen to attend the Women in House program in Ottawa where she shadowed Member of Parliament Luc Berthold and attended a Q&A session with Justice Rosalie Abella. After this experience, Fayha decided to focus more on politics and law. She is eager to use the opportunities this council provides to fill gaps in her community and create meaningful change.

Robert Candido

University of Guelph

Robert is a fourth-year student majoring in Political Science and Criminal Justice, and Public Policy at the University of Guelph. Robert is deeply involved in his school community, as he has volunteered with organizations and clubs such as Enactus Guelph, the University of Guelph Pre-Law Society, and the Student Help and Advocacy Centre. He has also worked as a lifeguard with the City of Mississauga during the summer time. A lifelong resident of Mississauga Centre, Robert is passionate about issues such as criminal justice, immigration, disability rights, and Canadian foreign policy.

As a member of the Mississauga Centre Youth Council, Robert is hoping to engage on these issues as well as increase youth awareness and participation in the political process throughout the riding, and across the City of Mississauga.

Amna Syed

Wilfred Laurier University

Amna Syeda is excited to be a part of the 2019 Mississauga Centre Youth Council. She currently a third-year undergrad student at Wilfrid Laurier University studying Political Science with Legal Studies. She is looking forward to engaging the youth and creating platforms where young voices in politics can be heard in Mississauga with the help of our Member of Parliament.

Ofah Khan

Rick Hansen Secondary School

Ofah is a grade 11 student at Rick Hansen who believes that it takes great passion and determination to reach success. Throughout her high school years, Ofah has dedicated her time towards a number of clubs and extracurricular activities. For the past three years, she has served an executive in the French Club and as a Student Ambassador. Due to her interest in business, Ofah recently joined the DECA team at her school, in which she is competing in the written category. Through this experience, she was able to improve her leadership and communication skills as well as her work ethic.

As an active member in her school community, Ofah believes in making a difference. She believes each person is able to make a change if they remain committed to it. Taking part in school clubs, such as Junior Civitan, has offered Ofah a chance to give back to the community by volunteering at events in order to engage seniors as well as taking part in several food drives. In addition, she is committed to seeking new opportunities and finding ways to learn. She is fluent in English, French, as well as Urdu. While representing the Youth Council this year, Ofah is committed to involve the youth in affairs regarding the government and offer the youth a chance to be heard in their community.

Aimen Khan

Rick Hansen Secondary School

Aimen is a grade 12 student at Rick Hansen Secondary School and she hopes to pursue studies in business at university. As a leader among her peers, Aimen makes a continuous effort to become involved in extra-curricular opportunities. She is the President of the Student Ambassadors team and serves as the public relations officer on the student council. Additionally, due to her interest in business, she takes part in her school’s DECA team, through which she has competed at both the regional and provincial levels.

Aimen is also passionate about social justice causes and constantly strives to give back to her community. Having been a part of the Hansen for Humanity and Junior Civitan teams at Rick Hansen, she has taken on several initiatives including volunteering with seniors, organizing fundraisers and food drives as well as facilitating anti-oppression workshops. As a part of the Youth Council this year, Aimen looks forward to helping educate youth in the community about the role of the government and the importance of voicing their opinions.

Janelle Hinds

McMaster University

Janelle Hinds is the founder of Helping Hands, a platform to help youth volunteer and get civically engaged while building skills for their future careers. As the Program Coordinator of this youth-led initiative, she delivers workshops to newcomer and racialized youth to build leadership skills to ensure all youth are active citizens. While working on her Bachelors of Engineering with majors in both Biomedical and Electrical Engineering, Janelle realized her passion for STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) education, entrepreneurship and diversity issues. She founded HackItMac (now known as PhaseOne), a collaborative community to learn about technology and organized deltaHacks, the first student-run hackathon in North America with a focus on enabling positive social change. She is currently also a CivicAction fellow and an advocate for social innovation.

Janelle has met with various figures including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Netherlands Mark Rutte and  Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard. She was recently awarded United Way of Greater Toronto’s Youth Leadership Award, Samara’s Everyday Political Citizen Award and Dutch organization Inspiring Fifty’s top women in Technology and  Innovation.

Javheria Ibrahim

York University

Javheria is involved with several human rights initiatives, including various local Amnesty International chapters. She enjoys volunteering and working towards bettering community resources and programs for minorities and marginalized groups. She has volunteered at several food banks and other community-driven charitable events, as well as developed a mentorship program for first-year female engineering and computer science students. This program, hosted at York University, is aimed at helping students cope with the hardships and biases they face as women in STEM fields.

As part of the Mississauga Centre Youth Council, Javheria hopes to build a community in which all voters know their rights and have a basic understanding of Canada’s political structure. It is her belief that knowledge is power. As such, she wishes to accelerate and improve local community engagement and political understanding by providing youth, who are soon to be of voting age, with the information they need to be educated voters.

Fahed Altaji

University of Ryerson

Fahed Altaji is an artist and writer working out of Mississauga and Toronto. He is currently studying Performance Production at Ryerson University, while also taking classes in political science and theory.

As an active member of the Arab and Palestinian communities in the GTA, Fahed devotes his time to working with organizations such as the Canadian Arabic Theatre, where he engages in initiatives to promote local work produced by visible minorities. He strongly believes in using artistic endeavours as a means to promote social and political change on a national level.

Fahed’s passion for bringing justice to communities who, historically, have been wronged or underrepresented, is a driving force behind his writing and artistic work. He is very keen to use his mediums as a part of the Mississauga Centre Youth Council, where he is ready and willing to collaborate with others to make a change in Canadian society.

Moaaz Waheed

McMaster University

Born in Lahore, Pakistan, and raised in Canada, Moaaz is passionate about creating change. He is a first-year student at McMaster University. As an advocate for entrepreneurship and education, Moaaz has served in various leadership roles for organizations and clubs such as Ember, DECA, Mississauga City Youth Council and the DeGroote Accounting Association. In 2016, Moaaz co-founded a non-profit organization that was established with the core purpose to spark interest in the entrepreneurial world. This campaign featured six prestigious entrepreneurs from Mississauga who were interviewed on Rogers TV. From the campaign’s significant success, Moaaz’s team’s story was featured on various media outlets including Business Casual, South Asian Daily, HeerNow, and more. In addition, his team received distinction from not only the community of Mississauga, but from all levels of government. Moaaz is interested in blockchain, entrepreneurship, education and FinTech.

Jena Nicefero

University of Toronto Alumni

Jena is a University of Toronto graduate with an HBSc double major in neuroscience and cell biology and a minor in Italian language studies.  She works full time as a retail store manager and has 9 years of retail sales expertise under her belt.  As store manager, she has mentored individuals to succeed in sales and to learn more about how businesses operate.  As an ambitious individual, Jena hopes to one day become a successful entrepreneur to set an example for other young women.  She is excited to be a part of the Youth Council to help inspire other young people to get involved in their local communities.

In her spare time, she loves to learn and try new things to stay active: she practices taekwondo, rollerblades, goes to the gym, and during the winter months will take to the slopes snowboarding.

Aadil Jayasankar

Tomken Road Middle School

Aadil Jayasankar (Adi Sankar) is a grade 8 French Immersion student at Tomken Road Middle School. He has been involved in many community activities and events like Blood Donation camps, the Terry Fox Run and the 2018 Municipal election. He has on multiple occasions won individual titles such as “Malayali Ratna”, ‘Kala Prathibha” and also has won many awards and prizes in arts and literature competitions. He plays six musical instruments, practices Tae Kwon-do and is a Bollywood dancer too. He speaks French, English, Spanish and Malayalam.

He is interested in politics and current affairs but wants to pursue his life and career in helping his community as a doctor in the future. As a member of the MCYC, Adi hopes to launch campaigns to tackle bullying and harassment from the lives of kids and youth at school and home.

Sarah Khader

Rick Hansen Secondary

Sarah Khader is a high school student with a strong passion for politics and business.

She was born and raised in Kuwait, a middle-Eastern country, and recently moved to Canada, giving her exposure to a different society. She joined the MCYC because she wanted to make a difference in her community. She also believes that the Youth Council is an excellent avenue for her to expand her knowledge of politics. Her other hobbies include volleyball, singing and boxing.

Basant Nouh

Glenforest Secondary School

Basant is currently in the grade 11 IB/DP program hoping to work hard towards enrolling in a Health Sciences Program at University. While being in this program, she has learned to become more of a global-minded person and strives to educate herself on global problems. Through conversations with friends and families, Basant has grown passionate about diversity and teamwork. With a strong desire to make a change, Basant hopes to bring her creative ideas to the table to make her community a better place. Above all, Basant believes that MCYC is the perfect environment to pursue her interests and an opportunity to put her skills to the test.

Daniyal Ahmed

Faisal Oglah

Junnat Syed

Wali Ul Asr Learning Institute

Junnat has held the class representative position for several years at her school, giving her extensive experience in voicing the opinions, ideas, thoughts, and concerns of others. She is an individual who expects only the best from herself, and always operate and executes with that a mindset. In addition, she is an active volunteer in her community, who has worked, and continues to work, towards many great causes. Junnat aims to bring about great positive change in the world and promises to execute her position as a member of the Youth Council with a great deal of effort, precision, and dedication.