Meet The City of Toronto Muslim Youth Fellowship 2020 Cohort

The historic Muslim Youth Fellowship program, now in its third year, provides hands on civic and political leadership training to Muslim youth leaders, with the goal of ensuring that municipal policy-making reflects the diversity that is Toronto's strength and defining feature.

This year's Muslim Youth Fellows attended a launch celebration at Toronto City Hall on March 3, that was attended by Toronto Mayor John Tory and Member of Provincial Parliament Doly Begum. Memona Hossain from the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) spoke at the gathering as MAC is one of the supporters of this initiative. 

The Muslim Youth Fellowship was first launched in 2018.

According to The Torontoist, "The Muslim Youth Fellowship was organized by two leaders of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, Mohammed Hashim and Nora Hindy, who came up with the idea during the federal election in 2015, when they noticed a high level of political engagement and interest within the GTA’s Muslim community. 'We wanted to create an opportunity for young Muslims to democratically engage and give back to the city in a meaningful way,' says Hashim, who is also a senior organizer for the Toronto and York Region Labour Council. The fellowship received initial funding from the Atkinson and Laidlaw foundations, and received more than 60 applications for the first round of internships."

According to the Toronto Star, the first cohort of fellows had the opportunity to meet with politicos from across the political spectrum, from Alykhan Velshi, Stephen Harper’s former director of issues management in 2014, to Michal Hay, Jagmeet Singh’s NDP leadership campaign director, to Tom Allison, who steered Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne’s leadership bid, and Walied Soliman, Patrick Brown’s 2018 campaign chair. 

• ZUBEIR AHMED ZUBEIR AHMED
• SANA KHAWAJA SANA KHAWAJA
• NADIA BAYRAM NADIA BAYRAM
• MARYAN MAHAMED MARYAN MAHAMED
• KANDEEL IMRAN KANDEEL IMRAN
• FATIMA KHAN FATIMA KHAN
• BILQEES MOHAMED BILQEES MOHAMED
• AREZOO NAJIBZADEH AREZOO NAJIBZADEH
• AMAL MOHAMED AMAL MOHAMED
• AINI GAUHAR AINI GAUHAR
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