# Zainab Mahdi's Manager Readme

**Health Promotion Specialist at Black Health Alliance**

# My Role

Hi, I'm Zainab 😊  
  
I’m a Health Promotion Specialist on the Health Promotion and Community Engagement team alongside Ameerah, Joy, and Luidgi. My role at BHA combines two of my favourite things: community engagement and health promotion activities. Through my work I get to convene and collaborate with Black communities to help amplify their voices through community engagement, while also leveraging community insights and wisdom to deliver meaningful health promotion activities.

# My Background

I obtained a BSc in Health Studies and an MSc in Global Health and Development, both with an emphasis on social determinants of health and refugee wellbeing. Most of my previous research revolved around refugee health, both from an intergenerational perspective and from the lens of spiritual/religious healing from trauma. 

Over the years I’ve had the privilege of leading youth-focused research projects in Tanzania and Indonesia, refugee capacity building projects in Egypt, and systems level health promotion initiatives (with an emphasis on youth mental health and crisis response) here in Ontario. I also have experience co-founding and running a non-profit supporting Black Muslim youth, management consulting and program evaluation experiences, and have worked as a Project Manager - which is to say I know a little bit about a lot of things, but haven’t quite mastered anything yet lol.

# My Hours

I’m usually a 9-5er, with a preference for doing heads-down work (e.g. writing, brainstorming, workplanning) earlier in the day. I tend to appreciate slower Monday mornings and Friday afternoons, to help me both ease into and out of the work week. I also tend to time-block in my calendar to help keep me organized. I’m based outside of the GTA, so I primarily work remotely.

# Communication

I usually respond pretty quickly to slack messages (within an hour or two), and prefer slack huddles for short check-ins or inquiries. Unless I have a meeting-heavy day, I also tend to respond to emails relatively quickly - within 24 hours. If you have a time sensitive request, please let me know via slack or email, and I’ll try to prioritize it on my end.

# My Style

I am a big picture thinker, so I like to understand the full context of a project, how all the pieces fit together, and how I can best support our shared goals. Sometimes this means I ask more questions than seem necessary, but it’s only because I’m mentally connecting all of the dots.

I enjoy brainstorming or kick-off meetings at the start of new projects to get aligned with my team, and appreciate regular check-ins to keep track of progress. I’m a project manager at heart, so I often try to think of creative ways to keep myself organized, which includes developing and testing out new processes or systems.

# My Strengths

I tend to be a pretty good problem solver and try to tackle challenges creatively. I have strong writing and editing/proof reading skills, so don't hesitate to send over your drafts! I love strategic thinking and feel pretty good at it - developing goals, KPIs, creating a Theory of Change. I also really enjoy and feel skilled at group facilitation, community engagement and any activities that involve collective learning, sharing and growth.

# My Challenges

I speak really fast! Especially when I’m excited about something lol. I promise I'm working on it, and please nudge me to slow down if needed! I’m a recovering perfectionist so I’m also working on getting over my fear of the blank page™ and will try to share my “work in progress” more often.

# About Me

I love slow mornings and finding pockets of time in my day to journal, meditate, or ground myself in some way. I love learning new things! Recently I’ve been learning how to swim (yes, at my big age lol), play piano, baking, screenwriting and I’ve been studying Arabic for a couple years now. I have also picked up running recently and plan to run a half-marathon this year! I’m always looking for ways to pour back into the community that raised me, whether that’s through volunteering, mentorship or mutual aid.

I don’t love working on tasks/projects without clear direction or expectations. Or being so busy that I’m often skipping my breaks. I’m also not a big fan of matcha, the winter (unless I’m skiing), or joining meetings on MS Teams/WebEx.