The Federation of Zoroastrian Associations
of North America is proactively
sharing leadership positions with its youth
Parinaz Gandhi
In keeping with its momentum "to engage, energize and empower our youth,” the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America (FEZANA) announced the names of four dynamic volunteers who, beginning September 2020, have been assigned new portfolios: Freyaz Shroff will officiate as FEZANA’s first ambassador to India; Parshan Khosravi will chair the Zoroastrian Youth of North America (ZYNA); Sanaya Master will co-chair the FEZANA Unity and Welfare Committee; and Ana Verahrami will co-chair Zoroastrian Youth Without Borders (ZYWB).
Ambassador to India
"We look forward to creating viable working relationships and building strong partnerships with local Zoroastrian trusts and associations, from the Bombay Parsi Punchayet and Parzor to the World Zoroastrian Organisation Trust (WZOT) and Xtremely Young Zoroastrians, and anjumans across the country,” stated Shroff in response to Parsiana’s queries. Currently settled in Bombay, Shroff will represent the North American body "officially at local events and liaise on behalf of FEZANA with India based institutions, organizations and individuals. (She) will also work in fostering cross-continent collaboration on various projects with special emphasis on youth and welfare,” noted a communiqué from FEZANA.
Shroff’s journey with FEZANA commenced about 20 years ago when she was inducted onto the Critical Assistance Committee, since renamed the Unity and Welfare Committee. Helping out with cases of domestic violence, poverty relief and medical aid, she subsequently served as co-chair of that Committee and was honored with the Jamshed Pavri Humanitarian Award. She has also co-chaired the ZYNA committee.
Clockwise from top l: Freyaz Shroff Photo: Jasmine D. Driver; Ana Verahrami;
Parshan Khosravi Photo: Jasmine D. Driver; Sanaya Master
As Shroff related, "I was not someone who was involved with the community in my early 20s. It was when FEZANA began proactively recruiting youth to serve on committees…that I was given the opportunity to be molded and coached. My co-chairs were amazing… They were happy to hand over more and more responsibility. They also never shied away from sharing the credit. All this helps a young person feel valued and connected.” She further enjoys the distinction of representing FEZANA at the United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women and was co-host at the North American Youth Congress in Miami, Florida.
"I have an understanding of FEZANA’s goals and objectives as well as its synergistic way of working, and above all, its values. This will hopefully allow me to understand the merits of proposed initiatives and to help bring them to fruition. This will also hopefully help me to facilitate connecting Zoroastrian youth and community members to events relevant to them in North America,” assessed 45-year-old Shroff who had earlier served as the youth chair of the Mumbai Chapter of the World Zarathushti Chamber of Commerce and also worked closely with WZOT.
Residing in Bombay since early 2007, Shroff keeps busy with a non-profit organization (NGO) facilitating the higher education of the less privileged, has eight "adopted” children and has recently begun a parenting consultancy. With her parents residing in America, she has decided that "if life circumstances demand me to be in America for a period of time or even an extended period of time,” she would relocate but would eventually prefer to return to India.
Co-chair of Unity and Welfare
"The collective experience of participating in the UN conferences has helped with working on a larger canvas and the understanding of complex social issues,” noted Master, a member of the Zoroastrian Society of British Columbia (ZSBC). A communications and engagement specialist by profession, in March 2020 she was selected to be a panelist and moderator at the 64th UN Commission on the Status of Women conference that was to be held at the UN headquarters in New York but had to be cancelled due to the pandemic. For the presentation that was recorded and shared online, she had worked under the guidance and mentorship of Dr Behram Pastakia and Afreed Mistry, FEZANA UN NGO co-chairs, giving her "a fantastic learning opportunity.”
Last year she had attended the 68th UN Civil Society Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah and had compiled the Rapporteur’s Report on behalf of FEZANA. This experience gave her "a wider perspective and deeper understanding of social injustices and inequalities” besides helping her understand the finer nuances of working with disadvantaged groups of people, she noted. A speaker at global and local Zoroastrian events, in 2018 she had organized the first World Zoroastrian Youth Leaders Forum at the Asha Centre in the UK.
Getting more involved with FEZANA after her marriage and relocation from New Zealand to Canada over a year ago, she gave credit to Firdosh Mehta, past president of FEZANA and current president of ZSBC for introducing her to the Unity and Welfare Committee. Under the "dynamic, new president of FEZANA Arzan Wadia, I definitely see a rise in youth taking up leadership positions in Zoroastrian organizations of North America,” observed 30-year-old Master, adding, "Nearly half of the ZSBC board in Vancouver is made up of youth under the age of 35. It’s a lovely synergy as the more mature happily share their wisdom and past experience with those who bring in fresh ideas and new energy. In order to pave a way for the future, you need to honor the past... We are lucky to have the able guidance of more experienced community members, leading lights like Dolly Dastoor (FEZANA past president and current editor of FEZANA Journal) who have dedicated their lives to working for the community.”
Co-chair, Zoroastrian Youth of NA
"One of my first actions will be to work with FEZANA to identify a youth representative from each association,” Khosravi told Parsiana. "In addition, I hope to restructure ZYNA to also include a few spots for youth who may want to partake in ZYNA but who may not have an association to nominate them. Finally, I will be working with FEZANA to modernize the structure of ZYNA and create an executive committee within ZYNA to help with the various programs and responsibilities.”
Involved with the Zoroastrian community of California since his arrival to the US as a refugee, Khosravi’s connect with the California Zoroastrian Center increased when he became a member of the youth committee in 2014, and later as the chair of the Seventh World Zoroastrian Youth Congress (7WZYC) held in California last year. He referred to the common youth refrain of a "diminishing sense of belonging to the community” and a distant connect with each other. "This has especially been exacerbated during the pandemic when many of our youth feel completely detached from each other. For most youth, the disconnection from the community starts around high school as they slowly age out of the Sunday school programs and religion classes.” Through ZYNA, 26-year-old Khosravi therefore plans to "centrally and de-centrally help provide new programs and partnerships to strengthen the connection of youth to their centers and their Zoroastrian community.”
He also hopes to "create mentorship programs (among others) targeted to pair young professionals and/or college students to high schoolers to help provide support and direction. I believe that we have immense talent and potential among our youth and we could really nurture it with the right investment through targeted programs… Professional development and entrepreneurship opportunities is a really big focus for me.” He is also keen that ZYNA explore new programs and opportunities to give back to the community by participating in national and local philanthropic projects.
"I think that Zoroastrian youth are extremely capable of holding positions of leadership,” believes Khosravi referring to the 7WZYC organizing team comprising "entirely of youth my age managing a half-a-million-dollar, multi-day, international congress. All our youth need is an opportunity to showcase those capabilities. But that won’t happen without a conscious effort to recruit youth. That’s why I’m so thrilled with FEZANA’s 35 by 35 plan, which aims to push for all FEZANA associations to make sure that 35% of their board of directors are youth under the age of 35, by the 35th FEZANA anniversary in 2022.
With a Master’s degree in public policy from the University of California in Los Angeles, with his focus areas being voting rights, higher education and immigration, Khosravi currently serves as the government relations director for the University of California Student Association where he leads the organization’s state and national advocacy efforts in Sacramento and Washington DC. He observed that "there are many extremely talented young professionals who simply do not see an avenue to get their foot in the door when it comes to FEZANA due to the disadvantageous process of local elections. Many youth today have no idea about FEZANA and what it does.” He appreciated though "the unequivocal support I have received from the FEZANA executive when I led the planning of 7WZYC (albeit I will be the first to admit I have not always made it easy with some of my bolder ideas).”
Co-chair, Youth Without Borders
"To highlight some of the amazing work that ZYWB alumni have completed around the globe and to encourage potential members to apply,” Verahrami plans to develop a new website for ZYWB that offers part financial support to North American Zoroastrian youth undertaking humanitarian internships to assist the underprivileged. She will also be using social media platforms to engage more youth and hopes "to create a sort of database of global opportunities that align well with the mission of ZYWB which prospective applicants might use,” the new co-chair conveyed to Parsiana.
A conservation biologist with a passion for storytelling, photography and protecting the natural world, Verahrami had received funding from ZYWB in 2018 for her research project on forest elephant conservation in the Central African Republic. Currently completing her Masters in ecology at Colorado State University, she is a researcher with the Elephant Listening Project, a research laboratory at Cornell University that uses acoustic monitoring to conserve and protect forest elephants throughout Central Africa.
During her early years, Verahrami’s involvement in the Zoroastrian community was restricted to her attendance at the Avesta class organized by the Zoroastrian Association of Metropolitan Washington. Subsequently in college, she joined the FEZANA UN NGO committee and attended UN conferences in 2017 and 2019. At the 7WZYC last year she highlighted her research and how it relates to UN’s sustainable development goals.
"I could not be more excited to see...an outstanding increase in youth involvement in the North American Zoroastrian community,” 24-year-old Verahrami told Parsiana, happy to see youngsters chair FEZANA committees, organize a WZYC and engage with local Zoroastrian organizations as well. "While I believe that we still have a long way to go to achieve the appropriate level of youth involvement that is so critical to sustaining our religion and our local and global communities into the future, I personally have felt so inspired by my peers and hope that as more youth continue to engage with the Zoroastrian communities in North America, others will feel more encouraged to do so as well,” she remarked.