Q&A with activist Shereen Ashman

9 November 2011 No Comments

Shereen Ashman

By Samuel Getachew

Shereen Ashman discovered activism by coincidence. Introduced to it by a beloved late guidance counselor, she still finds the work “equally rewarding, enriching, educational and fun” over a decade later. The York University graduate in Political Science is the founder and project manager of a grassroots organization, A.S.A.P.

Sway talks to the very personable vivid activist of many local and international initiatives.

Your previous mentee, Danielle Webley, describes you as someone who “changed my life and who can take a great idea and turns it into a reality”. Those are powerful words coming from a young person. Tell us about your activist journey so far?

My journey began at 14 years old and was initiated by Mrs. Sleigthome (R.I.P), the guidance counselor at Dr. Marion Hilliard Senior Public School at that time. One day, she asked me to host a new girl to our school who had recently emigrated from Jamaica (where I am from). I enjoyed everything about hosting my new friend, Nickesha and we are still friends today.

That experience sparked my interest to serve. It has remained bright for the past 16 years that I have been active in local and international communities whether leading or contributing to community initiatives to support disadvantaged communities, the residents therein, young entrepreneurs, youths, and capacity building projects in Toronto, St. Maarten, Jamaica and now Haiti.

I have had the pleasure of working with great team members and organizations including the Kiwanis Key Club of St. Maarten (where I completed high school); Woodgreen Community Services, Jamaica Canada Diaspora Foundation, Future Leaders, Jamaica Canadian Association, Artreach Toronto, and others too numerous to list here. It’s been challenging work, but equally rewarding, enriching, educational and for me fun.

Today, I enjoy working at AYCE Employment Services, a division of Tropicana Community Services and initiating projects under my own social enterprise, A.S.A.P.

Tell us about your group, A.S.A.P (a Shereen Ashman project). By its own self-definition, A.S.A.P. aims to “make a difference and have fun doing it”. Please explain?

A.S.A.P. is a social enterprise that is focused on community development projects to support social, educational, career and entrepreneurship causes. I launched A.S.A.P. in April 2011 with our first project, Jam 4 Jamaica, which is a party for a purpose aimed at raising funds to support the education of children in need in Jamaica. Since then, we have launched AT THE TABLE, a mentorship brunch and the team has grown to include an assistant project manager, Gregory Henderson, our photographer David Morgan of Morgan Photography and three new writers for our blog Maia Thomas, Johanna Niles and Jemila Laws.

My goal was to create A.S.A.P. as a platform to do three things – to initiate fun projects that would engage people to make a difference in Canada and the Caribbean; to also profile people who were doing the same work and their projects; and finally to inspire people to make a difference and have fun doing it.

Tell us about M.A.D.E. workshop and why you think it’s important to “bring about positive change in the community”.

M.A.D.E is an [acronym] for Make a Difference Events. I created this workshop series with the objective of teaching youths how to make a difference in their communities by way of organizing and hosting issue/cause-based events.

Recently, I facilitated MADE workshops in the Chester Le community, working in partnership with two amazing grass roots organizations: Rize Above and CLIC (Creating leaders in Chester Le). The same organizations were already operating a girls group in Chester Le and I was asked to facilitate Saturday sessions. The girl from that session organized the Rize Above Violence basketball event to promote gang prevention among youths while raising funds to purchase a basketball net so that youths had a positive alternative activity to engage in.

For me, creating positive change in the community is necessary to ensure a healthy community. One that thrives, offers a better quality of life, and is self sufficient in the terms of encouraging, empowering and supporting its members to solve issues whether working exclusively or in partnership with outside sources. Positive change = healthy communities = less social cleavages and the benefits go on and on.

In your much read website – www.iloveasap.com – you have profiled many role models with many impressive personal stories. Tell us about it?

My team and I write two main profile articles. The first is our community champion profile. Maia Thomas is now the new writer for that articles series, dedicated to profiling persons, community workers or social workers who are leading community projects, a causes, or organizations. Our second article series is called “Behind the Cause.” Here we spotlight vital volunteers who are working to ensure the success of community initiatives.

I initiated these profile articles because I thought not enough spotlight was on the people who are working hard to make our communities better, their projects and stories. Equally, I was hoping that others would be inspired by their stories and would perhaps take action to make a difference in their own way.

Where would you want A.S.A.P. to be in the next five years?

I have big dreams for ASAP. In the coming months we will be launching two new article series, one focused on counseling and the other on education. Second, we will be hosting our 2nd annual Jam 4 Jamaica Party for a Purpose in April 2012.

Over the next five years we encourage you to join us expand the AT THE TABLE mentorship brunch events and our roster or articles and projects. I am personally looking forward to launching our Tour and Volunteer Project. Throughout it all, we plan on having a lot of fun.

Interested in joining the ASAP team? Please contact Shereen Ashman via email: [email protected]

Facebook: www.facebook.com/shereenashman.
Facebook Fan page: I Love A.S.A.P. (community champion circle).