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Meet this years’ CBIE Excellence Elizabeth Paterson Award Recipients: Humaira Jakir Nuf and Jhanvi Indatissa

This award is awarded to an international student or group of students in order to recognize those who contribute in a positive way to internationalization of their campus community. As student supervisors of the FIC Awareness Campaign Team (ACT), Jhanvi and Nuf have significantly contributed to creating a positive and inclusive space for students to share, learn and seek support!

Here’s their story:

FIC ACT is a team that identifies issues within the community and creates awareness campaigns. One of the main things we focus on is supporting the international students that have moved continents by themselves and are not only trying to deal with adjusting to university life, but also to a completely different culture and system. We run booths, events, and presentations on specific topics that we think could be beneficial and useful to the students.

We started at ACT as members for 2 semesters and we learnt so much as volunteers, so we decided to take those skills further and apply to be supervisors. This role can be very time consuming and requires a lot of effort. So from the outside, it would seem like this role takes away so much from us but in actual fact, it’s the other way around. We have grown and learnt so much from this volunteer opportunity!

“I got to know myself a lot through this volunteer opportunity. I realised that I’m a huge planner and like doing things after having planned them. At some point I had a supervisor who wasn’t like that and he sort of just jumped into things, but he’d still do them well. So every meeting was an adventure. So, now if I have to do a spontaneous presentation without preparation, although it would not be the ideal for me, I now have the tools to know how to deal with that.”-Nuf

When we heard that we had won the award, we were so overwhelmed. We both work very well together so it was amazing being recognised for doing something you’re so passionate about and also enjoy doing!

Overall, having a leadership role can be very scary and intimidating. Especially when the team you’re leading is full of exceptional and brilliant minds. But what’s important is realising that we’re never going to be perfect, but it’s a constant learning and growth process that’ll be so worth it in the end!