This webinar is part of a free public series hosted by CCMW’s Leadership & Mentorship Pilot Program, exploring the tools and relationships that move careers forward for Muslim and racialized women.
CCMW’s ASPIRE research is direct about what safety at work actually means: “Safety for me isn’t just not being harassed. It’s being able to pray without fear, speak without being silenced, and bring my whole self to work without being punished for it.” Too often, that safety isn’t guaranteed; It has to be built, requested, and defended, one conversation at a time.
“When they see my cane and my hijab, it feels like two strikes against me. I’m either seen as incapable or too much trouble to accommodate.” — ASPIRE Study Participant
“I learned to ask upfront, because if I waited, it was seen as me being ‘difficult’ later on.” — ASPIRE Study Participant
This webinar names that reality directly, and builds real, practical skills for navigating it — including strategies for self-advocacy, and how to tell the difference between genuine cultural safety and surface-level cultural sensitivity in the workplace. As CCMW’s ASPIRE research puts it: “Cultural safety is a workplace approach that goes beyond cultural sensitivity… cultural safety is defined by those most affected, not by those in positions of power.”
Self-advocacy is a real and necessary skill for the workplaces many of us navigate today, but it isn’t the finish line. The goal is a workplace that doesn’t require constant negotiation for belonging in the first place. This session gives you tools for where things are now, without losing sight of where things need to go.
You’ll walk away understanding:
- How intersecting forms of bias — including Islamophobia, racism, ableism, ageism, and queerphobia — shape visibility, voice, and safety at work
- How to apply identity-safe visibility strategies that name your strengths and contributions clearly, without minimizing who you are
- Practical self-advocacy skills for cultural safety and accommodation needs including how to navigate when language barriers or a lack of support within family or community structures make it harder to build that skill in the first place
- What the CCMW Leadership & Mentorship Pilot offers
This session includes candid discussion of discrimination, bias, and lived experiences of exclusion — including Islamophobia, racism, ableism, ageism and queerphobia. We’ve created this space with care, and encourage you to engage in whatever way feels right for you.
We hope that you can join us for this and all sessions in this series!
Meet Our Speakers
Dr. Nadiya Nur Ali
Dr. Nadiya Nur Ali is a Black Muslim Immigrant/Arrivant woman who works and lives in the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee and six nations peoples. Dr. Ali’s story on Indigenous lands, like many, was propelled by imperial pull factors and colonial push forces – which deeply informs her scholarship on race, racialization, coloniality, and cultural production. Dr. Ali’s work gives particular attention to Black Muslim populations, examining “life still” while fielded in the intersection of Anti-Blackness and Islamophobia. Dr. Ali’s scholarship is in conversation with and continues to be informed by Black Feminist Thought, Critical Ethnic Studies, and Critical Muslim Studies. Dr. Ali holds an Assistant Professor position with the Sociology department at Trent University and is a co-founding member of The Black Life and Community Knowledge Lab at Trent Durham.
Nafeesa Dewji
Nafeesa is a multidisciplinary researcher and data analyst who specializes in the intersection of online culture, information exchange, and politics. With Digital Public Square, she has worked on a variety of projects across 6 countries, working to bridge public opinion, online communities, and international policy.
Nafeesa holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia and an MA in Russian Affairs from the University of Toronto. With a unique academic background, combined with experience in moderating large-scale online communities, she provides deep insights into how we shape our digital environment and how our digital environment shapes us.
Shahzia Noorally
Shahzia is an equity & inclusion practitioner who leads with curiosity, creativity, and a systems mindset, driven by a commitment to building workplaces where equity and inclusion are not just values, but embedded practices. She hosts The Equity Gap Podcast, where each episode tackles hard truths and invites listeners to reimagine what equity really means — on personal, organizational, and societal levels. When not working, she leans into community, anchoring her energy towards advocating for and amplifying equity deserving people including as a facilitator, mentor, and volunteer advisory group member with Accelerate Her Future. Shahzia is a proud second-generation Pakistani Canadian Ismaili Muslim, dog mom to a blind rescue named Walter, is late-diagnosed with ADHD and lives, works and plays in traditional Treaty 7 territory in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
