Who are you?
So many ways to answer such a short question… My name is Yassaman Nouri and I am compassionate about helping people in anyway I can. I love life and love to spread happiness to the people around me. I believe that every single person in the world has unique talents, skills and passions and if given the opportunity, can achieve greatness! Hence, I listen to people, and help them discover their own greatness and encourage them to use it in creating a positive change in the world around them.
What do you do for fun?
There are lots of things I love to do for fun. More than anything else, I love to do sports. I swam competitively for many years so that is by far my favourite thing to do. I also love to run, bike, hike, dance (flamenco and salsa), play my piano for hours, read books, go to movies, spend quality time with friends and family, people watching and randomly starting conversations with various people. Aside from that, I LOVE traveling! My goal is to visit 200 countries before I die and speak 5 languages fluently. My guilty pleasures are long walks in the middle of snow and having a large ice-cream cone!
What is your favourite community? Why?
There are so many communities that I love, can I pick the whole world? If not, I will pick the social finance and community development community. I am fascinated by how people from all social, economical and educational backgrounds can come together and design innovative ways to develop communities around the world.
What is your superpower?
I love helping! I love listening to people, asking them questions to learn more about them, and help them to improve the quality of their lives and put a big smile on their face. I enjoy analyzing situations, getting opinions of all sorts of people and then coming up with out of the box ideas for create positive changes.
How do you use it to build community?
I believe my current job sums this up. I am on an internship with Canadian International Development Agency as a Credit Union Development Officer in Africa. My placement is with Malawi Union of Savings and Credit Co-operatives. I visit new credit unions and talk to board of directors, management, staff, credit union members and various people in the community to asses their needs. Then I look at the programs and products that are available at the credit union for all these stakeholders. I then compare the two together to bridge the gap. I recently received approval from the Bvumbwe Savings and Credit Co-operative (the first credit union that I visited in Malawi) to commence implementing programs such as mentorship and entrepreneurship programs for post-secondary school students, youth savings accounts for 12-18 year olds to teach them the culture of saving and hence them with school expenses, workshops for women to learn how to start and run their own small businesses, workshop for farmers to learn best practices of farming and learn how to run their farms as successful businesses, organizing credit union days to connect the people of the community with the credit union team and many more exciting projects that I am motivated to work with various amazing individuals on!
My Three Favourite Things About Yassaman are…
1. Giant Hair. It overflows. Stands tall. Twirls and blows in the wind. And probably has a life of its own. I’m sure quite how Yassi manages the flowing curls, but the fact that she does it is a true indication of her organizational skills.
2. So much Kindness. A heart of gold this one has. Whether it’s ridiculously nice thank you gifts to the Business Career Centre team (I first met Yass when she was a BCOM student at UBC’s Sauder School of Business) or or the general nature of her micro-finance work in Africa or that she has arranged bike rides around the world to raise awareness for different global issues or the fact that she never says no to anything, ever, Yassaman Nouri is truly one of the nicest people that I’ve ever met. She brings this kindness to workshops that she facilitates, social events and the people with whom she connects. It’s a pleasure to know Yass and call her my friend.
3. World Changing Business Education. Nothing against investment bankers or operations analysts for Shell, but Yassaman has taken her technical and professional toolkit into a part of the world that quite frankly needs a break from hardship. She is applying her skills in the most meaningful way possible and truly making a positive difference in the world. Stories like hers are inspiring and I hope that many more folks follow in her footsteps.
…as told by John Horn
Photo courtesy of ~suchitra~