Our Team

Firdaus Ali

Project Manager - firdaus.ali@ccmw.com

Firdaus is currently employed by CCMW, as their National Project Manager for the Addressing Barriers to Employment for Muslim Women (ASPIRE) Project. In this role, she aims to educate and empower communities to effectively address multi-layered employment issues facing Canadian Muslim women. Firdaus also leads CCMW's Digital Anti-Racism Education (DARE) Program across Canada. The program aims to counter counter hate, racism & Islamophobia with learnings and evidence-based information.

Firdaus is an active voice on diversity & inclusion and has led several health equity initiatives for national and provincial organizations. She believes in blending creative programming  with savvy media campaigns to open constructive dialogue on humanitarian and feminist issues. She has worked on several path-breaking community initiatives impacting women's sexual and cardio-vascular health and gender-equity issues for national & provincial organizations including: Heart & Stroke Foundation, Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention (ASAAP), Osteoporosis Canada etc. 

Firdaus led an anti-homophobia  media campaign for ASAAP and contributed to the South Asian adaptation of Heart & Stroke Foundation’s “Make Health Last” advocacy campaign.

A journalist in her earlier life, Firdaus continues to write on films and theatre, and was perhaps the first female journalist from India to dress as a man and walk the lively streets of Bombay to explore gender diversity and expression.

A proud Gandhian, Firdaus lives by the philosophy: You must be the change you want to see in the world!

Duha Elmardi

Education Coordinator - educationcoordinator@ccmw.com

Duha Elmardi is a Sudanese nonprofit professional with 15 years of experience as an educator, program and project coordinator, and organizational development consultant in Sudan, Malaysia, the USA, and now Canada. She is dedicated to anti-oppression, social change, and creating positive impacts through community organizing, facilitating, and supporting collective work. Throughout her different experiences, she has developed and facilitated educational workshops, curriculum, and training on a number of social issues, including climate justice, gender-based issues, anti-racism, etc., for schools and nonprofit organizations. She has also been an education coordinator at Concordia University in Montreal since 2019.

Currently pursuing a Master's in Human Systems Intervention at Concordia University, she also holds a BSc in Environmental Studies and Disaster Mitigation, a specialization in Non-profit Management from National Ribat University and a GrDip in Community Economic Development from Concordia. Duha loves listening to podcasts, reading, trying out different cuisines and binge-watching reality TV shows.