As the 2010 Winter Olympic Games got underway in Vancouver, hundreds of Ismaili volunteers from across Canada officially became ambassadors to the world. Donning green-coloured jackets emblazoned with “Ismaili Volunteers” on the front, these Olympic Ambassadors have been welcoming tourists and athletes to the city since the beginning of February, providing information and directions, and managing queues and crowds in Vancouver City Centre.

“It is an amazing feeling to volunteer alongside other members of the Jamat at the largest event Vancouver has ever hosted,” said Kahir Lalji, an Ismaili volunteer.

Through CIVIC — Challenging Ismaili Volunteers in Communities — a youth based programme that focuses the energy of young Ismailis towards improving the wellbeing of the communities in which they live, younger members of the Jamat were also invited to help welcome the world. Volunteers aged 18-25 responded enthusiastically, signing up rapidly to take on the role of youth ambassadors.

Easily identifiable in their green-coloured jackets, Ismaili volunteers
in Vancouver City Centre have been welcoming tourists and athletes
since the beginning of February. Photo: Hakam Bhaloo

“We were given the opportunity to volunteer at one of the busiest downtown locations,” said Adam Samji, a youth volunteer. “It was a great feeling to represent the Ismaili community in our special green jackets and to showcase our spirit of volunteerism.”

Ismaili volunteers benefit from the recent experience of organising large events that commemorated Mawlana Hazar Imam’s Golden Jubilee, as well as the Jamat’s Khushiali celebrations that take place every year. Their performance has garnered applause from the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), who requested their organisation and management expertise to streamline other volunteer host locations.

“We are fortunate to have attracted a large and diverse application pool of people from around the world who are willing to volunteer for the Games,” said Allen Vansen, who is responsible for workforce operations at VANOC. According to the organisation, more than 77,000 people applied to donate their time and talent to contribute to the success of the Games.

Tourists visiting Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games
seek assistance from an Ismaili volunteer. Photo: Hakam Bhaloo

In addition to taking part as Olympic Ambassadors, the community has also partnered with VANOC in other ways. Some Ismaili volunteers received specialised training from the Olympic Organizing Committee to chauffeur senior government officials and ministers to Olympics Special VIP Events. VANOC also engaged the community’s assistance in managing Olympics-related events.

On 11 February, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, hosted the 2010 Olympic Truce Youth Dialogue at the Vancouver Public Library, which was attended by over 500 youth from across Canada. Following a similar successful event held at the Ismaili Centre, Burnaby in September, VANOC asked the community to co-manage and provide human resources.

After the dialogue, the Governor General met with the Ismaili volunteers and expressed her appreciation for their contributions towards the success of the event, recalling the earlier Truce Dialogue at the Ismaili Centre.

Ismaili youth were enthusiastic to volunteer as Olympic Ambassadors and welcome the world
to Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Games. Photo: Riyaz Lalani

When Nasreen Jessani was a little girl growing up in Kenya, she recalls her grandfather talking about McGill University as a place to aspire going to, a place with a reputation both for the quality of education it provided and for the warmth of its welcome to international students.

Years later, Jessani finds herself not only at McGill, but playing an active role in providing that friendly welcome to non-Canadians as the president of the McGill International Students’ Network.

“My grandfather, who didn’t go to any university, knew of McGill,” says Jessani, who is in her fourth year in a BSc program, majoring in anatomy and cell biology, with a minor in psychology.

Jessani began working with the MISN last year as vice-president, communications. She sought the presidency last year with a few ideas in mind for improving the lot of the University’s 3,000 international students.

For instance, one of her priorities is finding a housing solution for exchange students who number roughly 400 annually. Because these students stay only four months, they frequently have trouble finding accommodation.

Working with Off Campus Housing and the Student Exchange Office, Jessani hopes to enlist the “buddy system,” whereby recent arrivals are matched with well-settled students, to help such students find accommodation. She also plans to lobby nearby landlords to offer short-term leases.

Her work on this dossier has impressed Pauline L’Ecuyer, the International Student Adviser. “I’ve met lots of students with great ideas and projects, but she realizes them fast; she’s very pro-active,” says L’Ecuyer.

Fostering communication seems to be one of Jessani’s strong points. Last year, for instance, she initiated the newsletter MISiNformed, to keep MISN members abreast of information. A glance through the current issue reveals articles on the Network’s new home in the new student services building, a regular advice column penned by L’Ecuyer, a page on culture and events listings.

Winter events, such as skating at the Bell Amphitheatre and planned trips to the winter carnivals in Quebec and Ottawa, figure in the list.

“We try to give people Canadian experiences,” says Jessani, who has become an enthusiastic floor hockey player since coming to McGill — she played field hockey in Kenya as a child, and, later, in the United Arab Emirates, where her family moved when she was a teenager. She has also become an avid skier.

Still, Jessani recognizes that adapting to this culture, this climate and this distance from home is harder for some international students than for others. While Jessani herself is Kenyan-born, she lived in Canada for a few years when she was a toddler. Her mother’s family lives in Alberta. “I suffered no culture-shock nor weather-shock,” she laughs.

Many members of the MISN “are like me” and have some previous Canadian experience, she says. There are also members who are not international students but who join MISN out of an interest in helping the newcomers and in learning about a whole slew of countries. Among McGill’s roughly 3,500 international students, 145 countries are represented.

Next year, Jessani hopes to find herself doing volunteer work in the health field, in some corner of the developing world. Last year, while working in Pakistan teaching children how to read, she caught the bug for development work.

She enjoyed the experience of rubbing against the realities, as opposed to the stereotypes, of people from other cultures. The people she encountered found Jessani to be something of a revelation as well.

In the village in northern Pakistan, for instance, “They couldn’t believe that we [of Indian origin] could speak French and English so well and they couldn’t believe that [Canada's] prime minister is not Muslim,” chuckles Jessani, herself a Muslim of the Ismaili community.

“It’s amazing the questions you get, which is why it’s so important to work or travel internationally.”

Source: http://reporter-archive.mcgill.ca/Rep/r3207/scope.html

These provide an overview of the Islamic world’s finest artistic achievements in wood, stone, gold, bronze, ivory, ceramics and textiles, and on parchment and paper. The different Islamic dynasties can be seen, identifying the territories over which each dynasty ruled following the Abbasid caliphate at the end of the 9th century. The Umayyads held sway over al-Andalus, the Fatimids and the Mamelukes reigned in Egypt, the Ottomans in Turkey, and the Safavids in Iran and the Mughals in India.

The essential characteristics of Islamic courtly culture can be seen in generic portraits of respective sovereigns in profile. The works of art on display also emphasize the high cultural level of the Islamic courts responsible for spreading knowledge of Ancient Greece to the west via translations in Arabic.

The exhibits are divided into three large sections. The central section is devoted to The Qur’anic Faith while the other two guide viewers through various Islamic courts using as a metaphor a journey in two stages –From Cordoba to Damascus and From Baghdad to Delhi.