Fatima Fasih first came to love the University of Toronto Mississauga campus while she worked towards earning her Bachelor of Science degree with a double major in environmental science and biology. She graduated with honours in June 2013.
The UTM campus is “perfect,” she says of her time at UTM. “I met good professors, who are still my friends.”
As an undergraduate, Fasih volunteered at two hospitals, became actively involved as a peer health educator for the Health and Counselling Centre’s tobacco education program, Leave the Pack Behind, and worked as a sustainability intern at the City of Mississauga.
She returned to UTM in September 2014 to join the first cohort of the new Master of Science in Sustainability Management program. Fasih was drawn to the program's multidisciplinary approach, drawing on an array of backgrounds including business, engineering and natural and social sciences, to develop leadership in sustainability.
Fasih, who is also an accomplished painter, founded Fatima Fasih Watercolours in 2013. The artistic venture has raised more than $10,000 for charitable causes. Fasih produces her artwork to encourage youth to participate in social and political activism, and to raise awareness of those left vulnerable in conflict and disaster, especially women and children.
The UTM alumna attributes her successes to her parents, professors, closest friends and supporters.
“There are people who like the work I do. It’s very humbling,” she says. Fasih anticipates merging her hobby of creating artwork with her career in the future, but in the meantime, it is enough for her to “play a small part.”
“I think there are lots of sad things happening in the world, but we should never give up,” she said. “We all have a role to play.”
Author: Larissa Ho, Communications Intern, Alumni Relations, University of Toronto Mississauga, 2014
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