How to overcome political disillusionment with Fizza Khalid
THE GREEN LINE'S
CHANGEMAKER INTERVIEW
How to overcome political disillusionment with Fizza Khalid
For our February 2025 Changemakers newsletter, we spoke with one of the faces behind the Scarborough Environmental Association about local activism.

PORTRAIT OF FIZZA KHALID IN FRONT OF A WALL OF FOLIAGE.
📸: CHRISTIAN KEAY.

Adele Lukusa
A graduate of TMU, Kitchener native enamoured with Toronto and lover of Jamila Woods. Currently working on supporting mutual aid efforts and unpacking the nuances of Black haircare.
Feb. 5, 2025
If there’s one thing to know about Fizza Khalid, it’s that she gets involved.
She's worked with Progress Toronto and TTCRiders, and co-founded the Scarborough Environmental Association, a grassroots organization that focuses on neighbourhood advocacy with local residents (and puts out banging reels that burst with that brand of charm, humour and realism that only Scarberians have.)
Fizza's advocacy journey started in high school with Pathways to Education, a program that helps low-income students graduate and succeed in their careers. At the time, mentors convinced Fizza's parents to send her off to university.
She says that push changed the trajectory of her life and motivated her to pursue activism — from protesting on campus to organizing neighbourhood clean ups. However, this journey didn’t happen without bumps in the road.
Learn how she’s navigated challenges and disillusionment, and how she approaches her work with the Scarborough Environmental Association (SEA) in our Q&A, below.
You’ve been involved in advocacy for a while. What are your biggest takeaways?
I think understanding how trust and influence affect people is very important because honestly, I find that people’s political leanings are not as strong as they believe they are.
After I came out of university, I was very disheartened and apolitical because I felt like you can't do anything as an individual, none of it matters. And I found that every time I would interact with someone by saying “this is my political leaning. I'm very leftist,” and labeling it in that way, it would create division right away.
I started canvassing with Progress Toronto, which was a policy based organization, so party lines didn't matter. I found that my conversations when I was canvassing for parties were very different from when I was canvassing for local policy issues. In the latter, people were more receptive and wanted to talk. I would be able to talk to conservatives and we would be able to agree, which I never thought would be the case when I was younger.
And then with the Scarborough Environmental Association, we wanted to build a very wide net for people to come together — whatever their political leaning is and whatever their age is.
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