A Place of Possibility

“What are you gonna do about it? What are we going to do about it?”

Ms. Pauline asked Zainab that question on a Montessori playground right here in Milton, after listening to a student complain about problems that felt too big to fix. She has spent her life trying to answer it ever since.

Milton is where Zainab grew up and was raised by her grandmother - a fellow educator - in a town where neighbours dropped pulao and pineapple cake at the door because it takes a village. She first learned the power of organizing at her Montessori school, and the power of a team on Milton United's soccer pitch - where her coach taught her that the best players don't just see where the ball is now. They see where it's going and work with their team to get it there. In 2022, the town named her Milton Citizen of the Year - and later its youngest-ever Official Bellringer.

Like so many of us, she spent much of her time at the GO station - watching the town empty every morning, believing that to change anything you had to leave. That the power to change the world lived somewhere else. So she went looking for it. In academia, as a researcher in developmental neuroscience. In government, working in the offices of Canada's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, where federal budgets are shaped. In diplomacy, as the youngest ambassador and mentor in the United Nations Space4Women program. In philanthropy, with nonprofits including the Urban Alliance on Race Relations and the National Education Policy Centre. At Harvard, where she earned her Master of Education and now teaches policy analysis, economics, and the practice of organizing people-powered movements as a Teaching Fellow. And most recently in New York, organizing on the Zohran Mamdani mayoral campaign - where she watched everyday people win a city of eight million, one door and neighbour at a time.

We are not running to be something. We are running to do something - with you.