“As a Muslim myself, I found it incongruous that the very call to prayer to which over one billion Muslims rise prostrate before God, was used by another group of extremists, as a call to violence.”
– Zahra Rawji, YMCA Global Peace Medal winner
A High School Student from Calgary wins the prestigious YMCA Youth Peace Medal for her global efforts in connecting youth.
Zahra Rawji, a 17-year-old Calgary student in Grade 12, studying in a prestigious boarding school in Massachusetts, captivated the audience at the YMCA Medals ceremony on November 28, 2014. Zahra is the founding President and CEO of iPals Online, a youth driven educational network, which allows youth around the world to connect in meaningful ways. To date, iPals Online has raised over $25,000 and received in excess of $100,000 of volunteer professional time and over 1500 hours of student time. It is being piloted this year in ten schools in five countries and on three continents, to reach some 10,000 students.
In her acceptance speech Zahra described how the idea was inspired by a visit to a school in a slum in Nairobi. “At age thirteen, I did not feel ready to behold the sight of poverty-stricken children living in slums like this one on the outskirts of Nairobi. I stood apprehensively, in front of the school, my shoes immersed in dark red mud, my nostrils filled with the putrid smell of open sewers. The principal came out to greet me, while several students crowded around him. I could not see the point of talking to these children about how I could help them when I could simply raise money for UNICEF. Nevertheless, I walked into a small dark classroom, the only light in the room streaming in from pane-less windows. Awaiting me were twenty students roughly my age, and before I could say a word, I was inundated with questions.”
Through her interactions Zahra discovered that what these students wanted most was computers and access to the Internet – connectivity – in order to make connections. “Even though they had never clicked a mouse or touched a key before, they knew like I did, that you had to be in the social-technological revolution. They knew then that they wanted to learn from and about other students around the world.”
Three years later, Zahra returned to Kangemi, a promised, with a computer, internet connectivity, and her youth network, iPals Online. Kangemi was just the beginning of her personal journey of discovery, challenging previous notions and perspectives. Zahra described one such experience, which made her question her biases.
In Spring of 2013, Zahra took iPals Online to schools in Karachi, one of which was situated in “an area under Taliban siege.” There she came across two boys both gripped with fear; one worried that his father – a Taliban – would be killed and the other terrified that his father too was going to die – at the hands of the Taliban. “At that moment” Zahra said she found herself sympathizing with both boys. Neither of them she realized, chose to be in this situation, as is the case with all children and youth in vulnerable circumstances she explained. “As a Muslim myself, I found it incongruous that the very call to prayer to which over one billion Muslims rise prostrate before God, was used by another group of extremists, as a call to violence.”
Zahra has taken iPals Online to vulnerable youth to the school in an urban slum in Kenya, the remote islands of Zanzibar and Mafia, Pakistan, Canada and the USA. She has forged partnerships with the Ministry of Education in Zanzibar and the Aga Khan schools in Pakistan. In Calgary she is working with agencies which reach out to newcomer youth to help them connect on iPals Online with other youth in Calgary and around the world.
Zahra’s vision, she said, was to connect hundreds of thousands of youth around the world, with intensely diverse backgrounds, to build understanding and bring social convergence in a divergent world. She concluded her “I know iPals cannot solve world problems, but I hope it will open the hearts and minds of others as it has mine.”
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Ismailimail 
Zahra congratulation for choosing the most powerful weapon to change the world. You are certainly providing the key to unlock the golden door to freedom. Keep up the good work and in doing so you become a role model to many of us.
Mary Hassanali
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Zahra and your sister Kiana are doing excellent work please keep it up we are proud of you and our prayers 🙏 are with you
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