Earlier this year, Dr. Fatima Coovadia received the Sterling Award for her contributions as a volunteer in Saskatoon.
Published Sep 14, 2023 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 7 minute read
Fatima Coovadia received the Sterling Award in recognition of her years of contributions to Saskatoon as a volunteer to improve the quality of life. She owns and runs Coovadia Consulting, focusing on identity and cohesion, and much of her work takes her into classrooms. Photo by Michelle Berg /jpg
Receiving the 2023 Sterling Award had never crossed Dr. Fatima Coovadia’s mind.
The award is given annually to a woman in the Saskatoon area who has enhanced the quality of life in the community through her service as a volunteer.
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Coovadia said she was surprised she was considered for it, and accepted it at the annual Silver Spoon Dinner in May not just for herself, but on behalf of everyone who’s helped her along the way.
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She also hopes others will be inspired to see their own potential to have a positive effect in the community, she said.
“Throughout the years, I’ve just tried to make small contributions I guess the committee appreciated in its totality.”
Coovadia is a commissioner on the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission (SHRC), a member of the board of directors for SaskTel, a member of the board of directors of the Saskatoon Public Schools Foundation, and vice-chair of the Concentus Citizenship Education Foundation.
She has lent her time and service to a variety of organizations in the community, including Think Good. Do Good, the Remai Modern art gallery’s board and the Faith Leaders Council at the University of Saskatchewan. She’s also been recognized with the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal.
“I really try to involve myself with organizations that I can really resonate with, where I think I can lend my voice, and where I can make small changes. Because I lend a very diverse voice that’s often under-represented and not often heard,” Coovadia said.
Senator David M. Arnot, who was the chief commissioner of the SHRC before he was appointed to the Senate of Canada in 2021, said he knew Coovadia from her work in the community before she became a commissioner, and knew that as a volunteer she wanted to build social cohesion. He described her as a bridge-builder, energetic, a great communicator, but also practical.
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She understands the importance of building relationships in the community, emphasizing the responsibilities of Canadian, of which a fundamental responsibility is to respect your fellow citizen, he said.
He noted Coovadia’s hard work with the Concentus Citizenship Education Foundation, which focuses on the rights and responsibilities of respectful Canadian citizenship.
“I think she is a champion for human rights. She’s demonstrated that many, many times; that motivates her and it’s all about building respect and connection between communities, and I think she’s a catalyst for that, she understands how to accomplish that, how to engage people in a constructive way, in a cooperative way, in a collaborative way.
“I’m really impressed by what’s she’s done and the quality she brings to her work, whether it’s volunteerism or whether it’s in the community and certainly at the human rights commission. She’s really a champion for Saskatchewan and Saskatoon and working with communities to build a better society.”
Coovadia, whose passions include education, human rights and justice, and giving a voice to people who are under-represented, is also pursuing those passions as the owner of Coovadia Consulting. Her work focuses on identity, race and achieving social cohesion.
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It’s taken her into classrooms and more recently allowed her to lead workshops for new Canadians who are trying to bridge their “old” and “new” identities.
People have to be comfortable in who they are and know their identity in order to contribute to their greatest potential, she said.
“It’s so important to feel valued and respected and that they belong in order for them really benefit themselves, but to (also) benefit society. It’s really trying to address those concepts at the interpersonal level, but also in the workplace.”
Her workshops and presentations involve unpacking abstract concepts and presenting them through her own personal lens.
Coovadia was born in South Africa and immigrated to Canada for the first time at the age of 13.
“Absolutely everything, really, ties back to my history, as well as my lived experience,” she said.
Growing up during the Apartheid era, she lived through racism and it shaped her and her journey. The “invisible weight” of labels applied to her as a Muslim woman who wears a hijab, and of Islamophobia in Canada, was the subject of a guest column she wrote for the StarPhoenix in 2016.
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It chronicled part of her journey through her faith-based lens.
“It really impacts everything I do, and I guess that’s what really got me interested in the human rights work and field that I am in right now,” she said of her experience.
Her involvement in social justice is at the grassroots: she is part of the Eastview Walk Against Hate, held in July. When the walk was first held in 2021, it was to show solidarity with a Muslim man who came forward after a violent attack against him in the alley behind his Eastview home.
Since then, the walk has continued, but participants are encouraged to reflect on the action they can take to end hate in Saskatoon. At the end, they’re encouraged to write down in chalk on the sidewalk what they pledge to do. It’s a walk, talk and chalk.
“That’s something that’s been really exciting and something we’re really very proud of, our small little group of four women who have come together to do this,” Coovadia said.
Sunni Muslim campus faith leader Fatima Coovadia, right, talks with students at the Good Breakfast program, a weekly breakfast hosted by faith leaders on the University of Saskatchewan campus in Saskatoon on Feb. 26, 2020. Photo by Matt Smith /Saskatoon StarPhoenix
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The story of her journey, in part, begins after she returned to South Africa before coming back to Canada. There, she earned her Bachelor of Dental Science degree and became a practising dentist. But when she returned to Canada, she was faced with having to obtain her Canadian credentials in order to continue a career in dentistry.
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It would have meant going back to dental school and starting all over again, at the level of a first-year student. That wasn’t an option. She was a new mother.
She applied her professional training as a classroom teacher instead, which opened the door to her love of teaching and interacting with students, she said.
When her eldest child (who is now 22) was four years old, Coovadia became involved in his school; that has continued as her two younger children entered the school system. She’s served on parent councils and preschool boards.
“When we started this journey 18 years ago, Saskatoon looked very different from the Saskatoon that it looks (like) right now,” she said.
“There’ve been lots of demographic changes, lots of new people coming into the city, and so I guess I was in some ways a resource to educators who were trying to navigate this new, changing landscape within their classrooms.”
Having studied within the Canadian education system, she also had an “immigrant perspective” to share, which was a resource for friends who worked in the system. She was called into classrooms to speak about her experience living under Apartheid, or as a Muslim woman who wears a hijab.
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As her children grew older and her involvement in the schools and the broader community continued, she was taken further away from dentistry.
By the time she was ready to re-enter the workforce, she no longer had the appetite to return to dental school to complete her certification. Instead, she earned a Master’s degree in Health Administration, where she developed “systems thinking” — in essence, a big picture mindset, she said.
It all led to her consulting work.
“One door opening into another, and it’s just how it evolved, it’s very organic in the way it evolved.”
When she thinks about what laid the foundation for her accomplishments, she sums it up in one word: relationships. They opened doors and new paths she couldn’t have imagined.
“It’s a crazy story, but that’s how it worked out,” she said.
She wants to see herself as someone who paves the way forward and creates spaces for people who aren’t often represented, around tables where their voices need to be heard for the betterment of society, she said.
“I would hope that some of these channels I create for people like my daughter would make the road ahead for them easier.”
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She was the shy one of three siblings in her family, and would hide behind her mother as a child, she recalled.
“For me to be in this position right now where I can hopefully inspire others to find their own inner voices, is something that I would love to do.”
Dr. Fatima Coovadia, a member of the Islamic Association of Saskatchewan, speaks during the opening ceremony for Cultural Diversity and Race Relations Month at City Hall in Saskatoon on March 1, 2017. Photo by Michelle Berg /jpg
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