Ryerson student named YWCA Toronto’s Young Woman of Distinction

Social innovator, civil society leader, nonprofit founder.

Arezoo Najibzadeh is all that and more. She’s also a student at Ryerson University and on Thursday, June 3, she will receive the YWCA Toronto Women of Distinction Award (external link) .

The founder and managing director of Platform (external link)  – a nonprofit organization that builds civic leadership capacity among Black, Indigenous and racialized young women and gender-diverse youth – Najibzadeh’s work builds on her lived experiences.

“I came to Canada from Iran when I was 14 years old and by the time I was 16, I was active in social justice issues like gender equality, civic engagement and multi-partisan activities for electoral reform,” Najibzadeh said. 

Over time, she realized that most of the existing organizations in grassroots movements didn’t fully understand or reflect the specific issues faced by young women and gender-diverse youth in marginalized communities, and Najibzadeh started Platform to help advance their priorities and reshape the political landscape. 

“I’ve always been interested in making sure that we use civic engagement as a harm-reduction strategy so that our governments and decision-makers understand the needs of the communities they serve. I want to make sure that we build a social infrastructure in which our collective decisions and solutions systematically change the way racialized and gender-diverse people experience the world,” Najibzadeh said.

A part-time student in Ryerson’s politics and public administration program, Najibzadeh feels honoured to be acknowledged as a Young Woman of Distinction by YWCA, an award that recognizes the accomplishments of inspiring women who are driving change in their communities and around the world. 

“Being recognized by an organization like YWCA is an honour because it embodies the fact that young women need mentorship as well as sponsorship. Along with the guidance that mentorship provides, sponsorship really helps turn their visions into reality,” Najibzadeh said.

Transformational feminist leadership

Najibzadeh developed It’s Time (external link)  in 2017, a set of survivor-centric and trauma-informed resources for addressing sexual violence in political institutions. 

The project has provided training to more than 100 politicians, political staff and volunteers on creating consent culture and support mechanisms within campaigns and legislatures. 

“Through our work, we create entry points into important social justice discussions. We ran a feminist summer school last year to make conversations around intersectionality and gender studies more accessible to the broader community. We also have healing sessions, skill building workshops and a Know Your Rights workshop to help people address systemic racism,” Najibzadeh said.

Earlier this year, Najibzadeh co-authored  (PDF file) Resetting Normal: Women, Intersectionality and Leadership (external link)  with the Canadian Women’s Foundation to lay out a blueprint for intersectional leadership for a feminist COVID-19 recovery.

“If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we need to create a social and economic infrastructure that ensures our progress towards gender equality won’t be threatened. A feminist recovery means having an intersectional and generational lens that creates the economic and social space to mitigate these losses,” Najibzadeh explained.

A feminist recovery also means strengthening the social determinants of civic engagement, Najibzadeh added, including access to education, safe housing and sustainable income – all of which are underlying issues that affect voter turnout and representation of women’s voices in politics. 

A Muslim Youth Fellow at the City of Toronto and a Women Deliver Young Leader, Najibzdeh regularly appears before legislative bodies such as the the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women and the World Forum for Democracy, providing insights on best practices for advancing women’s representation in politics and decision-making.