Ayan Ismail

Ayaan Ismail is a Black African Muslimah who grew up in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. She is invested in grassroots community organizing and furthering afrocentric decolonial practices in her life. She arrived in Canada in 2016 through the WUSC Student Refugee Program (SRP) and currently lives on the occupied territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Peoples, colonially known as Vancouver. Before coming to Canada, Ayaan was involved in many refugee-led initiatives with a focus on advocacy for refugee youth engagement and girls’ education. She served as an interpreter and case worker with UNHCR, support teacher with Windle International Kenya, and as an editor for The Refugee Magazine with FilmAid International.

In Canada, Ayaan continues her advocacy and support for refugee and migrant communities through working with settlement organizations in British Columbia. She had a key role in developing and implementing a curriculum where she addressed issues of equity, sustainability, and dignity as related to forced migration at the Refugee Livelihood Lab with RADIUS SFU. Ayaan is a founder of the Dreams of Humanity: Refugee Voices project which shares and amplifies the experiences, expertise, and voices of refugees in British Columbia. She is also a founding member of the Black in BC Mutual Aid Fund team which raised funds to support Black community members impacted by COVID-19 in British Columbia. Ayaan is currently an MA student in the Migration and Diaspora Studies program at Carleton University.