Note: The following article includes excerpts from an interview, which have been edited for brevity and clarity.
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On a grey afternoon in Metro Vancouver, two 11-year-old girls walked into their school office with a request that sounded simple: could they have a room to pray in?
It was around the time of the daylight saving time change, and prayer times had shifted. Lunchtime now overlapped with one of the five daily prayers in Islam. For Oromiya Ali, a Black Muslim girl who was attending Grade 6 at the time, the solution felt obvious: if school was where she spent most of her day, school should also be a place where she could practice her faith.
Instead, she remembered excuses.
“It was so ridiculous,” she recalls. “The school was making so many excuses, like how they didn’t have people to supervise, or that there wasn’t space… but all we wanted was a room during lunchtime.”
So she and her best friend, a fellow Muslim girl, did what many adults wouldn’t expect from 11-year-olds: they started a petition. They went around the school asking other Muslim students if they would benefit from a space to pray and collecting signatures. Eventually, a school counsellor quietly offered her small office space as a makeshift room.
For newcomers like Oromiya in British Columbia, belonging doesn’t arrive fully formed just because the province has a reputation for being multicultural. It is built, piece by piece: in classrooms, prayer rooms, mosques, student groups, and community centres. And for Black Muslim girls who are visibly marked by race, religion, and gender, that work is constant.
“Canada Was Supposed to be Heaven”
Before Oromiya immigrated to Surrey at age 7, she grew up in Somalia with her family, who are of Ethiopian ethnicity. There, people viewed Canada as a distant dream.
“When I was in Somalia, everyone had this perception of Canada being this amazing place. To me, it almost felt like heaven. That’s literally how people described it. So when I was coming here, I was thinking, ‘I’m going to have the best time of my life.’”
In Somalia, Islam was everywhere, woven into daily life so deeply it felt like air. Oromiya’s mother introduced her to the faith through stories of God’s mercy, the Prophet’s kindness, and the promise of heaven. “To me, God has always been on my mind and heart. He’s always with me,” says Oromiya.
Oromiya has always worn a hijab as well. In Somalia, it was normalized for girls and women to wear it. So when she moved to Surrey, she kept wearing it, even though here, that normality vanished.
In a new country, her faith became not just a belief, but an anchor: something familiar when everything else felt unfamiliar.
School as a Place of Becoming
But arriving in Canada came with a different set of challenges. She was placed directly into Grade 2 without speaking English or knowing how to read.
The first few months felt overwhelming to Oromiya. English words blurred on the page. Instructions were confusing. But slowly, pieces started clicking into place.
She vividly remembers the moment she first sounded out small, three-letter words—“cat,” “dog,” “fan”—and realized she was reading English.
Behind that progress were compassionate teachers and classmates who didn’t mock her for catching up. Those early relationships mattered deeply to Oromiya, as the eldest child in a newcomer family with parents who hadn’t grown up in Canada. Without a roadmap at home to navigate the school system, Oromiya created one with help from peers, mentors, and her own persistence.
At the same time, school was also when Oromiya made her first hijabi friend.
“I always say she was an answered prayer, because at that time, I was looking for someone just like me: a hijabi I could be myself with, have fun with, and just be girls,” says Oromiya. Some time later, Oromiya and her friend would petition for a prayer space together.
Their friendship was more than social comfort. It became the backbone of their advocacy. The petition for the prayer space wasn’t just about logistics; it was about forming a tiny, stubborn community that refused to accept that faith had to be hidden to be acceptable, and asserted that they deserved space for their faith.
That pattern, turning isolation into connection and connection into collective action, would repeat itself throughout her life.
Turning School Into a Place of Inclusivity
By high school, there were more Muslim students around Oromiya. Prayers were easier to organize, even if they still came with restrictions.
“We were able to get a place to pray,” she says, “but teachers would say things like, ‘You have to do it quickly, you only have five minutes before the next class,’ or ‘Can’t you pray at a different time?’ They just didn’t acknowledge that we had obligations to fulfill during the day.”
Still, that didn’t stop her and her friends from building what they needed. One of her favourite memories is the Eid celebration they organized for their high school. Her school had already hosted big events for other cultural and religious celebrations, such as Christmas, Diwali, and Vaisakhi, featuring hired singers, decorations, and activities for students. She and her friends wanted something similar for Eid, a major Muslim holiday marking the end of fasting during Ramadan.
So, they took matters into their own hands. They approached a vice-principal for support, then spent Ramadan visiting local mosques to ask for funding. They coordinated food, henna stations, educational posters, and activities, turning lunchtime into a joyful, visible celebration of Muslim identity.
“It was so successful,” she says. “It was just so nice to see everyone celebrating [Eid].” Moments like these, where Oromiya helped build a joyful Muslim presence at school, were early signs of the leadership and community-building that would later shape her experience in university.
When Support Is Built In
If high school was about carving out space wherever she could, university was the first time those spaces were already there waiting for her.
When Oromiya started her education at Simon Fraser University, she walked onto campus and discovered not one, but multiple prayer rooms. Dedicated spaces for wudu, the ritual washing Muslims perform before prayer, were built into the infrastructure.
“I was so shocked,” she says. “And I was beyond happy, because I remember how uncomfortable having to make wudu in public washrooms was, with people seeing you wash your face and arms in the sink so awkwardly. But the fact that they had a space for it, and all three SFU campuses had a prayer space, was amazing. We have such a large Muslim population at SFU, so the prayer spaces are always being used.”
The presence of a Muslim Student Association (MSA) at SFU stood out to Oromiya. “Being an active part of the Muslim youth group in my first and second years was what truly gave me a genuine sense of belonging and a sense of space. It was nice to go to the MSA events and talk to the girls about everything I usually can’t. A few of the girls were also older than me, so it was wonderful getting to know them and being inspired by them,” she says. Oromiya marks these moments as what made her faith grow stronger, because she was able to actively practice her faith and participate in so many Muslim events on campus.
For Muslim youth in BC, these kinds of institutional support are more than “nice-to-haves.” They are a recognition that faith is part of public life, not something that must be squeezed into informal spaces. They make it easier to balance prayer with lectures, or to step out of class without turning it into an act of resistance.
Community as a Second Home
Beyond campus, Oromiya’s sense of belonging is rooted in the communities that raised her.
“I definitely feel I have to give a shoutout to my Ethiopian Muslim community called the Bilal Muslim Community,” she says. “I have been a part of that community since I was so young.” She describes a network of elders, “aunts and uncles,” who built spaces specifically for Ethiopian Muslim children and youth. They organized iftars, youth programs, and gatherings where young people could laugh, learn, and just be themselves.
“They would host events and allow us to do things we wouldn’t be able to do in other areas,” she explains. “Even though we would have those opportunities in other Muslim spaces, there’s always that, you know… because you’re Black Muslim, that you sometimes feel like you don’t really fit in… So for it to be a solely Black, Ethiopian and Muslim community, to me, that’s what really felt like home.”
Those spaces gave Oromiya more than social comfort. They helped her find her voice and discover her leadership skills, skills she would later carry into school advocacy and campus organizing.
Her local mosque plays a similar role. With a large Somali Muslim population and a gym on site, it functions as both a spiritual centre and a youth hub. “That, to me, feels like a second home,” she says. “My friend’s dad is one of the admins, so we have access to the place all the time. We used to have study spots there, and they have a gym too, so we would play basketball whenever we got the chance.”
In a world where mainstream media is filled with Islamophobia and anti-Black racism, these spaces act as protection: not by hiding reality, but by giving her somewhere to bring the weight of it.
“As humans, we really need to find our community, our safe space, where we can be ourselves and be happy, despite all the negativity out there,” she reflects. “You feel loved, you feel accepted, and you feel like you belong.”
When Oromiya sees hateful comments or violence online targeting Muslims, she still feels sadness and anger. But being rooted in Black Muslim communities changes how deeply that hatred sinks in. “If there’s Islamophobia and such, yes, I feel sad, yes, I feel hurt,” she says. “But going to those communities makes me feel more grateful, more content to still be a part of the community. I love everyone there. This is not a community I would ever want to give up.”
Being Seen, Being Targeted
In Oromiya’s family, three members are visibly Muslim: her mother, her sister, and herself. Her brothers, she notes, could easily be read as “regular Black boys,” presumed to be non-Muslim or non-religious.
“For us who wear hijab, it’s a different story,” she says.
She commutes frequently on public transit, moving across SkyTrain lines and buses late into the evening. Over time, she has developed what she describes as a survival skill: hyper-awareness.
“I’m always scanning,” she explains. “I need to know who’s around me, and literally sense everyone’s mood. If I see anyone looking suspicious or they rub me the wrong way, I have my eyes on them, and I know I have to protect myself.”
One evening, she was on the SkyTrain with another hijabi friend when a man began staring at her. Eventually, he spat out, “You turban head.”
“He was Black too,” she notes. “The only difference between us was my scarf.”
No one intervened. Oromiya and her friend quietly got off at the next stop, even though it meant delaying their trip home, choosing safety over confrontation.
She’s careful not to romanticize this kind of resilience. Being “strong” in these situations isn’t about fearlessness; it’s about constantly calculating risk and choosing when to stay and when to leave.
Experiences like these are shaped by more than just Islamophobia. As a Black Muslim woman, Oromiya carries multiple visible identities at once, each with its own history of stereotypes and violence. Online narratives that portray Muslims as extremists or security threats add an extra layer of tension to everyday interactions, especially in public spaces where conversations about global politics resurface those stereotypes.
Navigating Visibility in Classrooms
At school too, Oromiya sometimes wonders what people see when she walks into a room: a student, a threat, a stereotype, an assumption about her politics?
“I sometimes think, in spaces I enter, what do they think about Muslims?” she says. “Do they assume my political views? Do they not want me here because of what they think I believe?”
At the same time, she tries to hold onto another truth: that her presence in those spaces matters precisely because she isn’t what those stereotypes say.
“Other times, I look at it in a good light,” she says. “If I’m in a space where there are not many people that look like me, I know I made it there, and that I proved to myself that I can be in any space I want to be in, that I deserve to be in. I take pride in that and carry myself high. I don’t care what they think of me. I’m here.”
Again, community softens the impact. Knowing that she can step out of those spaces and back into rooms where she is loved and understood keeps Oromiya from letting every hostile glance define her.
Faith That Doesn’t Fade
From the outside, it’s easy to assume that constant discrimination might weaken a young person’s relationship with faith. For Oromiya, it’s been the opposite.
“I don’t think I’ve ever questioned my faith as a result of the obstacles I face,” she says. “I’ve always felt my faith strongly at the end of the day. I believe in my faith so hard that I always acknowledge there’s gonna be times where you’re gonna be tested.”
Instead of comparing her obstacles to those of people with more wealth or status, Oromiya grounds herself by remembering where she came from and comparing herself with people who don’t have her current safety.
“Once upon a time, I knew what it was like to not have these privileges,” she says. “So who am I to complain? The fact that I’ve come this far is such a dream, a dream a lot of people cannot obtain.”
When she sees global violence, war, or displacement, she feels that contrast sharply.
“I’m so lucky to be living in a peaceful environment, because not a lot of people do,” she reflects. “I kind of look at that as God rewarding me. I don’t look at my struggles as nothing. I look at them as a way of God showing His love, His mercy, God showing me that if I turn to Him, things will for sure get better.”
Oromiya doesn’t deny that visible faith can attract hostility. But she refuses to let that hostility define her relationship with God.
“Yes, I’ve had encounters where wearing the hijab has been challenging. And I read a lot of misconceptions and disinformation in the media. People won’t say these things to your face, but I know there are always assumptions that I’m too extremist, too strict, and ‘overdoing’ it when it comes to my relationship with Islam,” she says. “But I’m too tired to have to explain myself all the time now. I really don’t want to waste my breath. Now, I’m more like, ‘You think of Muslims as this or that? Then, go and live your life in ignorance.’ It has more to do with the person than it has to do with me.”
For Oromiya and many other Muslim youth in BC, faith is not a phase to outgrow. It’s a compass they grow into, especially with the support of a community.
So what does Oromiya want people in British Columbia to know about Black Muslim youth like herself?
“We’re Just Like You”
“We Muslims have our own struggles, it’s not surprising, because everyone has their own struggles,” she says. “But at the end of the day, we are just normal people. We like the same things you do. We say the same quirky words and do the same things you do.”
Too often, she feels reduced to an image: the hijab, the headlines, the politics.
“I would want people to know that Black Muslims, or even Muslims in general, are very much normal, and we are very much involved,” she says. “We like the same shows, we have the same hobbies. We are very passionate, educated, and have big dreams.”
Many of those dreams are shaped by sacrifice: parents and relatives who left countries in conflict and worked to build new lives so their children could have options they never did. For her, faith doesn’t limit those dreams; it fuels them.
“Our religion teaches us to be kind,” she adds. “Even smiling is an act of worship.”
What Oromiya’s asking for is simple: move beyond tolerance to real relationships.
“It’s okay to say hi to us,” she says. “It’s okay to acknowledge us and get to know us. I could talk about my experiences all day, and I could hear about your experiences and your story all day. Don’t feel you’re overstepping just because you’re curious.”
She has watched Muslims step into public roles around the world, from organizers to elected officials. Each one, to her, is a sign that narratives can shift, even if systems change slowly. What she hopes for is not perfection but progress: more kindness, more representation, more celebrations of Muslim accomplishments rather than fear.
Belonging is built, not granted, and Muslim youth are doing that building themselves. Oromiya’s story is not just one of hardship, but of transformation: how a Black Muslim newcomer girl found ways to thrive, to embrace her intersecting identities, and to help create the kind of community that reflects the multicultural Canada she once imagined from afar—all while staying grounded in her faith.
Edited by Osama Alshantti
