Summer Student Profile: Meet Safiyyah Khan

 

Safiyyah Khan dreams of starting her own business. A second-year commerce student at McMaster University, she is learning valuable business skills this summer working as a Brand Ambassador at Habitat for Humanity Halton-Mississauga.

Safiyyah’s job involves “calling organizations and getting them to display our materials; like our bookmarks, our posters, to (help) get more volunteers.” She has taken part in recruiting blitzes in Mississauga and has taken on the project of organizing recruiting materials to smooth out the process.

She said that she enjoys “being able to talk to different people and showing what Habitat does and who we are.” Having been a co-op student at Habitat in high school, working as an administrative assistant, Safiyyah was eager to come back this summer.

Working at Habitat is helping to teach Safiyyah how businesses can operate behind-the scenes. “It will help my build my business and kind of be able to do HR by myself, marketing, finance and all of that,” she said. “Being a business student, I get to now work with a bunch of different people, internally and externally which is good because that way I build a lot of relationships. It helps because in business, and in life, networking is one of the key essential things to success.”

Another key to success is passion, and Safiyyah’s passion for her future business plans is evident when she speaks about it. She draws inspiration from her grandfather, who started his own business to support his seven siblings after his parents died when he was eight. “The reason why I want to do that (start my own business) is because for me personally, being my own boss is the most motivating thing in the world,” she said.

Safiyyah’s favourite part of working at Habitat is “seeing all the different people,” she said. “I meet someone new every single day, and that’s just amazing. You get to talk for a couple of minutes and it just opens your eyes to a whole different world that you wouldn’t even imagine.”