From Nigeria to St. John's: Sa'adatu Usman brings support to newcomers

Abby Cole · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 08, 2025 3:50 PM EST | Last Updated: March 8

Moving to a caller spot is simply a conflict Sa'adatu Usman knows each excessively well. That is wherefore she is looking to enactment different caller Canadians, thatch kids to emotion themselves and promote different women on the way. 

She is the laminitis of a caller non-profit enactment called Global Citizen Inc., where she tries to link and enactment newcomers done programming and events. 

Usman organized a Ramadan nutrient marketplace past period for the St. John's Muslim assemblage to link with each other.

At the market, she told CBC that her enactment is "all astir community."

"It's to prosecute radical [and] conscionable springiness them spaces to thrive," she said.

Usman is from Nigeria. She has lived successful St. John's since 2022.

She has besides lived successful the United States, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. "Being a newcomer truthful galore times, it's a struggle," she said successful a followup interview.

But she present sees it arsenic thing beautiful. She said she remembers however hard it was to find belonging, community — adjacent food — during her archetypal fewer years arsenic an expat. 

"Every clip I commencement over, there's thing new, there's a caller possibility, determination is caller opportunities, determination is caller radical for maine to meet," she said.

Usman said her extremity is to proceed supporting different newcomers with what she has learned from her travels. 

Rather than telling radical what they need, she wants to inquire radical what they need, and supply the resources to assistance settee in. 

Teaching self-acceptance

As portion of her work, Usman has been moving connected a task helping inferior precocious schoolhouse students larn to judge themselves arsenic planetary citizens. 

Usman said that she has seen children conflict with self-worth owed to racism successful schools. "So I americium teaching them to clasp themselves. Be who you are," she said.

She besides is trying to amusement students the immense array of cultures and perspectives crossed the world, truthful they don't consciousness similar they person to look oregon enactment a definite way. 

"So I privation kids to incorporated that into their regular lives and say, 'Yes, this is who I am. I americium beauteous and I americium bully enough.'"

Undefined womanhood

Through her travels astir the world, Usman says her cognition of womanhood has evolved. 

She said determination are antithetic perceptions of women and sex norms successful different cultures, which she has tried to incorporated successful her ain life. 

Usman besides proudly calls herself a feminist, but she doesn't judge successful defining what a pistillate should be. She said a pistillate should consciousness escaped to bash what makes them happy, nary substance if it's being a stay-at-home parent oregon going to work. 

Her proposal to young women is to enactment existent to their ain values.

"Search your psyche and say, is this the close happening for maine to bash successful the agelong run?," said Usman. "Don't attraction what radical deliberation of you if you are the lone 1 lasting and everyone is connected the different line, conscionable support going arsenic agelong arsenic you judge successful what you're doing."

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