Editing Ginger Garden (section)

==Himmat Shinhat==
{{#widget:YouTube|id=iDNlwX8RZ_0}}

When Himmat Shinhat, BComm 80, moved to Canada from England in the late 1970s, he felt a sense of disappointment. Montreal, in his experience as a member of a visible minority, was years behind England regarding multiculturalism and integration. Eventually Shinhat found his way to a place where things seemed different — Concordia. There, Shinhat found a “network of South Asian friends” and a “very progressive” student body and faculty that gave him the sense of be- longing he longed for. “There was a lot more attention paid to being inclusive with respect to racial and class diversity,” he says. The university was also a hotbed of progressive politics, which resonated with him.After graduating, Shinhat began working with a South Asian advocacy organization. Quickly rising through the ranks, within four years he was named the organization’s executive director. In the 1980s, he was recruited by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (now Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada).After a long career with Immigration and Citizenship Canada, in 2016 Himmat Shinhat began working with Syrian refugees as director of outreach for the Syrian Refugee Resettlement Initiative in Ottawa, his last stop before retiring in 2017.