UTM Alumna Mya Moniz - Reclaiming the Narrative
UTM alum’s career advocating for youth experiencing homelessness is a testament to her resilience, determination and the power of storytelling.
For UTM graduate Mya Moniz, the path to her role as a Peer Support Worker at Restoration and Empowerment for Social Transition Centres (REST Centres) was highly unconventional. Having entered Ontario’s child welfare system and experiencing such challenges firsthand, Moniz became intimately familiar with the struggles faced by marginalized youth in the fight against homelessness.
She became a client of the Region of Peel’s Restoration and Empowerment for Social Transition (REST) Centres, a BIPOC-serving non-profit organization. The connection led to an internship, eventually becoming a REST Peer Support Worker, where Moniz used her own experiences to help those on a similar path.
“People don’t want to take a young Black student seriously,” says Moniz, who has also worked with the Senior Leadership Table for the Peel Alliance to End Homelessness and the Peel Poverty Action Group. “I never had a black teacher growing up, I never had a black professor at UTM. That made me realize how far out Black people had been in higher education. Realizing that was so distressing and upsetting.”
She credits the support of the REST Centres for her ability to attend, and succeed, at university, where she channeled her childhood solace from literature into an honors bachelor of arts in English, Professional Writing & Communication and Sociology at UTM.
“Writing has always been a huge part of my life,” she says. “I like to write creatively, short stories and such, but especially through university and the professional writing program, where so much of it involves writing about your life, I’ve learned the power of healing that comes from writing.”
While at UTM, Moniz helped originate ‘Literature is ALIVE!’ with a group of her peers, creating a series of English and drama department-sponsored events to bring together students and professors for lively discussions on the scope and relevance of English studies.