Promoting Inclusion in Ottawa Classrooms 

Hoda Ahmed completed two Bachelor’s degrees at the University of Ottawa: one in Linguistics and the other in Education. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa. As a first-year teacher, she contends that her identity as a Black Muslim woman has shaped her experience not only as a teacher, but as a teacher trainee. She advocates for her young students and plays a leading role in promoting equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) within the university community. She aims to teach inclusively, and to introduce her students to diverse realities, such as awareness of Black History Month.   

Along with peers at the University of Ottawa, Hoda Ahmed created Teacher Candidates of Colour (TCC) Collective in 2019, a group bringing together teacher candidates of colour. The group has developed several workshops for teacher candidates, graduate students, professors and educators from Ottawa school boards. Topics of these workshops include anti-racism, teaching Indigenous histories, Black Canadian counter-narratives, cultural appropriation, and more. The TCC Collective prioritizes a respectful approach to promoting open-mindedness, as Hoda does in her classroom.