Philanthropy has always been a driving force in the lives of UBC students and sisters Alia and Salina Dharamsi. Photo courtesy of Alia and Salina Dharamsi.
Philanthropy has always been a driving force in the lives of both Alia and Salina Dharamsi.
As part of an immigrant population in Vancouver, the two sisters were encouraged by their parents to volunteer in the Ismaili community and raise their voice from a very early age. The pair has taken the pay-it-forward ethos and transferred it into the hustle and bustle of school and work life by engaging in a variety of volunteer experiences in the local and international community.
“When I was growing up, I had this very innate sense of justice and fairness,” said younger sister Salina, a Sauder graduate. “Helping out in the community and going on international service trips was my way to contribute to some really global problems. I didn’t just want to read about hunger; I wanted to go and see people.”
The two sisters have been around the world for their extracurriculars. Salina has volunteered in Guatemala, India and Rwanda. She was also a student delegate at the Peace Conference of Youth in Japan, a program aimed at leaders who want to achieve world peace. Alia went to Guatemala and taught English and science to the local community there.
“I noticed that a lot of the same issues that I was seeing here, for example in the Downtown Eastside, were really replicated internationally,” said Alia, who is in her fourth year of medicine at UBC.
Where Alia sees herself in the field of emergency medicine, Salina is more business-minded. She is completing her masters in accounting at the University of Saskatchewan, aspiring to become a chartered accountant. She is also working full time with the firm KPMG as an auditor and hopes to work in sustainability auditing.
While the two Dharamsis have chosen to pursue different career paths, their sisterly bond has always been intact and even helps with their volunteering project. Alia said while she was director of the Meal Exchange Organization in the Downtown Eastside, Salina contributed to the financial planning of the project.
Despite their varying interests and being two years apart, Alia has been an inspiration to younger sister Salina.
“I think for me it showed me that it’s possible. It was real because she was my sister and she lived five steps away from me and if she could do it, I could do it too,” said Salina.
“We have the distinct privilege of being sisters because what that comes with is someone who is by our side 100 per cent of the time, be it in volunteering, in school, in play,” said Alia. “I think that’s an advantage. That is a blessing and a gift that has allowed us to grow in ways we could not have done alone.”
Pressures in applying to highly sought after programs, jobs and internships in fields like medicine and commerce can leave students resorting to “resumé padding” to stay competitive. But both Alia and Salina emphasized seeing volunteering as an opportunity for personal development rather than a means to fill up space on a resumé.
“There is so much more to volunteering than writing a line on a resumé. Sometimes when I write my resumé I feel like it does not [do it] justice. I feel like it’s letters on page that don’t really capture the experience,” said Salina.
Alia says volunteer experience should be anchored in your passions and interests.
“Don’t look at someone and think what they’re doing is so unattainable,” Salina said. “Everything you do snowballs in life and I’m such a firm believer in that. You start small and as you go you find new ways to get involved — different indicatives, bigger roles.”
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