Social Activist Uzma Shakir

This article is about social activist, Uzma Shakir, who was recently awarded the Atkinson Economic Justice Fellowship. From the Wednesday, November 21, 2007, Greater Toronto section of the Toronto Star, page A7:


Atkinson Economic Justice Fellowship
ADVOCATE CHALLENGES STATUS QUO

Award helps Muslim immigrant expand work as community leader on diversity, social inclusion

Isabel Teotonio
Staff Reporter

Nearly 20 years ago, Uzma Shakir receive a phone call that would change her life. And, ultimately, the lives of countless others.

The caller was a recent immigrant from Pakistan whose husband was drunk and being verbally abusive. Not knowing where to turn, she phoned Shakir's husband, a well-known lawyer in Toronto's South Asian community from whom many had sought personal advice.

"My husband asked me to look up information on settlement agencies where they spoke Urdu," recalled Shakir yesterday, adding few immigrant women knew what support was available or how to access it.

"Irrespective of education, class and background, most (newly immigrant) women found themselves dependent on their spouses and if they didn't speak (English) it added to further feelings of alienation."

Fighting these feelings is something she dedicated herself to, becoming a community leader on issues of immigration, diversity and social inclusion - a dedication that has earned her the Atkinson Economic Justice Fellowship, which will be awarded on Friday.

Unlike some grassroots activists, the 50-year-old has a deep understanding of where that alienation is rooted - in large part, because she can identify with the experience of many newcomers.

Shakir herself gave up diplomatic dreams of working in the foreign service, abandoned her PhD studies and left her family and home country of Pakistan to join her new husband in Canada.

"I remember sitting in Scarborough with a new baby," she recalled of those early days in 1989. "I was isolated, I had no friends - except my husband's - and I'd become Mrs. So-and -So overnight ... It was very depressing. I'd lived a very independent life before and suddenly I was an appendage to someone else.

But then came the fateful phone call.

"That was the turning point because it forced me to think beyond, "I'm an immigrant women stuck in Scarberia.'

"It made me give up my self pity and I started thinking maybe I could make a difference."

And what a difference she's made say those who applaud her advocacy work, particularly on issues such as poverty, legal educational services and access to professions and trades.

Over the years Shakir has advised members of government, foundations and community groups and been involved in organizations such as the Coalition for Accessing Professional Engineering, the National Anti-Racism Council and the Riverdale Immigrant Women's Centre. She is now executive director of Toronto's South Asian Legal Clinic - a position she plans to leave next month.

And the applsuse will surely resonate when Shakir is awarded the Fellowship at Toronto's Drake Hotel on Queen St. W.

The award will provide up to $100,000 for annual stipend and expenses for three years, enabling Shakir to focus on writing, speaking and working with a wide variety of grassroots organizations.

Applications aren't accepted, rather the board selects someone doing exceptional work in social justice who could benefit from on-going, no-strings-attached support. Past recipients are progressive economist Armine Yalnizyan, former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow and housing activist Cathy Crowe.

"We just found Uzma to be everything we would want in an Atkinson fellow," said Peter A. Armstrong president and board chair of the Atkinson Charitable Foundation, which promotes social and economic justice in the tradition of its founder and former Star publisher Joseph E. Atkinson.

"She's an immigrant herslf, a Muslim woman in a post 9/11 world, she's spent her career seeking justice and fairness, and seeking a seat at the table for the many, many increasing numbers of people who are disadvantaged through no fault of their own.

"And, she will challenge those who love to protect the status quo."