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- March 15, 2007
Born poor, she toils for a better world
by Nicholas Keung
Immigration/Diversity Reporter
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Sadia
Rafiquddin spent her early years in a household where putting bread
on the table was a struggle. But last summer, she received trips to
Botswana and Russia, and she's earned a free education – tuition and
residence – at the University of Toronto.
Throughout her 21 years, the Mississauga resident has been driven by
three desires: to get out of poverty, get a good education, and help
the less fortunate.
Born and raised in the Sargodha district of Pakistan, she and her
family in 1990 were part of an exodus of minority Ahmadiyya Muslims
fleeing religious persecution in their homeland.
Once in Canada, with her mother busy running a home daycare for five
other children, big sister Sadia was soon assuming the role of an
extra parent, looking after two younger siblings and sharing in
cooking and housekeeping duties.
The family was hit by more financial hardship when her father
suffered a bad fall on ice one winter, shattering his wrist and
forcing him to leave his job as a heavy machine operator.
While at John Fraser Secondary School, Rafiquddin worked part-time
at two minimum-wage jobs, as a tutor and food server, to help
support the family and save for university.
But she never forgot her passion for human rights advocacy, serving
for three years as president of her school's chapter of Amnesty
International and leading its Charity Week, which raised $10,000 to
build a school in Sierra Leone in partnership with Free the
Children.
"I guess my past has a lot to do with my desire to contribute to the
world in a meaningful way," says Rafiquddin, a third-year U of T
student majoring in international relations and peace and conflict
studies.
"Cultures affect society. We can't just live in this world. Any
cross-cultural dialogue is impossible without international
relations."
After a year of three-hour commutes from her suburban home to U of
T's main campus, Rafiquddin was honoured with the prestigious
William Heaslip Scholarship from Trinity College, which fully covers
her tuition and residence fees.
Living on campus with her tuition taken care of has enabled her to
devote even more time to volunteer work, which earned her the 2007
New Pioneer Youth Award.
In the past two years, her compliance studies for the G8
International Research Group have been published in five reports and
earned her a trip to the G8 summit held in St. Petersburg, Russia
last year. Earlier in 2006, she spent two months volunteering at a
Botswana AIDS/HIV orphanage for the World University Service of
Canada.
"I grew up in dire financial circumstances and I always had the
desire to overcome poverty and give my parents and family a better
life," says Rafiquddin, who will next take part in a research
project in Namibia as well as join another mission to a G8 summit,
this time to Germany this summer.
"You just can't give up easily, because if you do, there'd be no
opportunity to continue to dream of a better life."
