Marwa Salah recalls the challenges she faced accessing disability services as the child of an immigrant family growing up in Edmonton.
At the age of five, a teacher recognized that Salah had a hearing impairment. She began wearing hearing aids and worked with an audiologist.
Now the 19-year-old is excited to be a voice for people with similar lived experiences as one of 13 interns paired with city councillors and Mayor Amarjeet Sohi for the next eight weeks.
“As a Somali Yemeni person of colour and as a woman, I know that there are spaces that sometimes we’re not able to fit into,” Salah, a second-year psychology student at the University of Alberta, said in an interview Thursday at city hall.
“Being able to open the field up to people who are Somali or Black, immigrants, and people of colour who have disabilities — I think that’s really important, as well as being able to get them the services and the resources that they need to have a healthy lifestyle.”
The Civic Youth Fellowship is a joint-effort between the Africa Centre, Canadian Race Relations Foundation, MacEwan University, Islamic Family Social Services Agency (IFSSA) and the city.
Organizers of the new project say it is designed to help youth advance in their careers and to train councillors to better engage with Edmonton’s equity-deserving communities.
Salah is paired with Coun. Erin Rutherford, who represents Ward Anirniq on the north side.
Over the next eight weeks, Salah will listen in on constituent phone calls and research upcoming council topics. She’s also organizing a public community conversation slated for June.
In her first few days, Salah has already provided her input on blogs drafted by Rutherford, who shares a passion for accessibility issues.
Rutherford said she was drawn to Salah’s heart and her passion for community.
“She’s able to see things and provide perspectives that otherwise we wouldn’t have in our office,” Rutherford said.
“So it’s just as much of a learning opportunity for me as it is for the interns.”
As part of the application process, potential interns pitched projects around issues at the forefront of civic issues, from public safety and food security to green spaces and walkable cities.
Interns underwent training with community leaders and politicians of various stripes to better understand how to navigate a place of power as racialized youth.
“When we design jobs, summer jobs, internships, often we have done like this cookie cutter one size fits all approach, but not all communities can navigate or fit into those boxes quite the same,” said Trent Daley, a spokesperson with IFSSA.
“Learning how to create a safe space for that is really important, especially. when you look at how politically divisive the time is.”
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.
