Inspired by her grandfather, international grad helps fellow UTM students
Zarina Mamadbekova’s grandfather was her role model. He taught her many lessons that she lived by while studying at UTM.
Always be kind to others. Get a good education. Volunteer. Use your knowledge to help others.
As the UTM graduand prepares to receive her degree in psychology and political science this year, she says these lessons helped her achieve academic success while giving back to the international student community.
“I felt like it was my responsibility to pay it forward,” says Mamadbekova, who came to UTM as an international student from Tajikistan.
When she was 12, she officially began her journey studying abroad when she moved from her hometown Khorog, in Tajikistan, to study at the Aga Khan Academy in Mombasa, Kenya. It was her grandparents who convinced her parents to let her go.
“I was so lucky to be part of a space where I had so much diversity and difference around me. It really shaped me as an international student,” Mamadbekova remembers.
She applied at the IEC, where she was offered a position leading programming for international students.
“The first day on the job, I knew that I was meant to be there,” Mamadbekova says.
She re-invented the IEC’s Buddy Program, now called the International Student Mentorship Program, which connects first-year international students with upper-year students who have similar backgrounds – such as language or country – in an informal atmosphere.
She was also a LAUNCH leader within the Centre for Student Engagement, where she supported the transition of all new students at UTM.
When the pandemic struck, Mamadbekova says many of these students went home and faced challenges such as studying in different time zones or struggling with poor internet connections.
“I really understood the struggles that they were going through,” she says, adding that she spent her first semester in Tajikistan, which is 10 hours ahead of the eastern time zone, and faced similar challenges.
Noting that students were “missing those personal connections,” Mamadbekova says it was important for her to foster those bonds in a virtual space. She connected with her peers virtually and was “able to provide that kind of support and mentorship to my students because I was going through exactly what they were going through.”
During her time at UTM, she was also involved in the University of Toronto Mississauga Athletic Council. Throughout the pandemic, she focused on virtual programming for students to help maintain their physical well-being.
Upon graduating, Mamadbekova will be working at UTM as a global living learning community developer at the Student Housing and Residence Life’s Global Living Learning Community.
In this role, she will be developing programming and organizing a speakers’ series for students who live at UTM’s multi-disciplinary residence community.
Mamadbekova also hopes to do more work with the Pamiri Youth Network, a group she co-founded with other students from Khorog she met while studying in London. So far, the group has successfully fundraised for communities during COVID-19, including the Pamiri-Ismaili community in Moscow, and is raising money for an oxygen generator and medical gear for Tajikistan.
She says her grandfather’s lessons have motivated her throughout her time at UTM, and now through the Pamiri Youth Network.
“He was so humble and down-to-earth, and he was the same with everyone,” Mamadbekova says. “That kindness has inspired me from day one.”