The setting couldn’t have been better for Farida Bano Ali to find out about winning a 2015 B.C. Community Achievement Award this spring.
The longtime Muslim community leader, who has spent years advocating for cultural awareness, multifaith dialogue, domestic violence prevention, refugees and new immigrants, was in Mecca when she got the email.
“I was in the holy land,” Ali told the NOW. “I said, ‘Oh, I’m so blessed. It’s so wonderful.’”
Born in Fiji, Ali retired 12 years ago after a 40-year nursing career that started in England and included time at New Westminster’s Woodlands School and the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital at Colony Farm in Coquitlam.
She moved to Canada 40 years ago and for nearly two decades has volunteered on numerous of boards, committees and initiatives.
She is a director of the Multifaith Action Society, chair of the Women’s Council of the B.C. Muslim Association, chair on the Muslim advisory committee for the Ministry of Children and Family Development, a member of the RCMP’s cultural diversity advisory committee and a member of the steering committee with Mosaic for issues related to preventing violence and abuse of women and girls in the name of honour killings.
She has also spearheaded fundraising dinners that have collected $40,000 for the new mental health centre at Vancouver General Hospital.
In 2006, she and her husband started a monthly hot meals for the homeless program that is still going strong at their mosque today.
“I say to myself: I’m on call from Monday to Sunday,” Ali said. “If anybody has social problems, like domestic violence or depression or a child abuse case, children apprehended, if they call me, I just go.”
A recent example included a refugee from Iraq and her two-year-old son who arrived at Vancouver airport a few weeks ago.
The woman took refuge in the YVR chapel and needed psychiatric help.
“She was totally out of her mind,” Ali said. “She saw her husband being killed in front of her; her son was killed in front of her.”
Ali was part of a group that helped the woman secure mental health support, emergency accommodations and money until support services kick in.
“To me, if I can do something good in one day, I’m satisfied,” Ali said.
The Burnaby volunteer was presented with the community achievement award last week.
Ali said the honour was especially welcome to her as a hijab-wearing Muslim Canadian woman, a group she said has “been under the microscope” recently and portrayed by the media as oppressed and voiceless.
“I feel that we do have strength,” Ali said. “We do have same vision, we do have same values as any other woman who advocates for social issues.”
