With the pandemic preventing us from carrying out our usual worker appreciation lunches, SEENAH decided to find a new and unique way to build connections with the ASD workers. Thus, the idea for the Al Shirawi Worker Interviews was born. In these interviews, SEENAH members sign up to chat with an ASD worker for 45 minutes during their lunch.
The main goal is to develop connections between students and the workers who keep the wonderful ASD running smoothly. The students learn about the workers, their lives, and their interest to get to know them on a deeper level; keeping it informal, but meaningful. So far, around 50 workers and 30 students are planning to participate in this initiative.
“I would love to go back to my home country because I miss my family and my mother's delicious traditional Indian food.”
The students have found these experiences to be meaningful as reported back with some quotes students have found memorable. After Jamila’s chat with Kakra, she asked him what he is the proudest of, to which he replied, “I am proud to be African,” a quote revealing a lot about his aspect of life and identity. Likewise, after Ihab’s chat with Naresh, Naresh mentioned, “I would love to go back to my home country because I miss my family and my mother's delicious traditional Indian food.” All in all, these short and sweet interviews have the power to make everyone’s day and have allowed the students to get to know some of our incredibly hard-working staff members here at ASD!
