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This Practice is not just a Neutral and Caring Profession, but an active Political Process.

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Part 4: Building an Anti-Oppressive Practice: 

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Part 4: Building an Anti-Oppressive Practice: 

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Becoming a Community worker is not easy, and not everyone wants to become a Community worker. it takes a lot of struggle and pain to feel the social problems and finally make a decision to stand for everyone's rights. If is possible for me to at least save one person from the hardships that i have been through, would be a win-win situation.  being a woman was the very first social identity that was subjected to discrimination. being a woman made me to be the weaker part of social mainstream. I was being attacked physically and morally by the dominant. I was being pointed to be immoral and rebel. and thus being punished for the talents I had within me.  This prompted me to become a community worker to contribute to correcting misconceptions about this group (women)
The second reason is my social location. I belong to the marginalized lower-class group. it has put a huge impact on my quality of life as a refugee in Canada. It has also impacted my access to resources and opportunities. I have this example; being a single Mom, working two jobs and looking after my children is very hard work. I had an application to lease an apartment in a better neighbourhood. But I was refused to be given the apartment because they assumed I cannot pay the rent.  This was also another reason for my choosing the field of community work in order to work with my community to fight oppression and discrimination.

I have learned from this assignment that in order to achieve balance in society and also among individuals it is a vital way to work in the limits of Anti-Oppressive practices.   Anti-oppressive practices helps to bond people with each other, facilitate access to benefits and services, and improve the standard of living in general. it is very obvious that Macro and Micro social relations generate oppression. If oppression is not eradicated from Micro level, it will be impossible to make any improvements at Macro level and in the System. We live in a diverse, multicultural, and multilingual society and therefore, it is precisely vital to understand the imbalances of power in the society specially at political grounds to design practices and procedures for a discrimination free environment, free of racism, free of persecution, free of ageism and other types of oppression.

I am now more knowledgeable about the importance of having basic skills to improve my anti oppressive practices:
1. avoiding hurting someone's feelings by providing inclusive, equal services.
2. Listening more and talking less, oppressed people feel at ease when the feel that they are heard.
3. every person has their unique identities according to their culture, background, education, beliefs, level of education, economic and social levels. these factors play an important role in building someone's personality. Understanding these factors can give us an opportunity to support the communities.
4. verbal and non-verbal communication skills; like body language, may help facilitate the process of supporting others.
5. being a co-learner, learning from life experiences of others can help to foster a sense of control, agency and self determination.
6. co-teacher: incorporating education like awareness of power dynamics can also help sense of control.
7. empathic Listener: is active and reflective listening to convey positive regard, warmth and respect. this helps build strong therapeutic relationships.
8. Co-Consultant: is collaboration and providing knowledge and sharing experiences where applicable.
9. Co creating, of opportunities and providing empowerment, but not rescuing.
10. Mediator: negotiating tensions and conflict resolution.

The next step to strengthening my anti-oppressive practice will be volunteer work, to develop understanding and awareness of the anti-oppression approach because of its societal importance, which as follows:
- Providing psychological and material assistance possible
- Increase and develop a sense of belonging to society: volunteers are doing their best to support and help people, so they feel belonging to one solid and community system.
-  people feel their importance in society.

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I have privilege yet being shamed and Oppressed...

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Part 3: My Social Location Within the Webs of privilege: 

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Part 3: My Social Location Within the Webs of privilege: 

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According to the box of oppression by Buyers, my social location identifies 4 dominant and powerful groups as follows:
1. According to gender Identity, I am a female, my birth identity is same as my gender identity. and this is identified as a privilege in the Canadian social context.
2. I am between the age of 35-55 and this is a privilege in the Canadian Context.
3. I am a healthy and powerful woman and a lot of strength, and physically capable, not disabled
3. I am heterosexual and married to opposite sex and gave birth to my children, which is also an accepted privilege in the Canadian Mainstream.
4. I am almost white, Central Asian (Aryan Race)and my skin colour is considered an accepted privilege in Canadian society.
According to the above points, I have a strong social location. I may have more access to resources. for example: I may not face any discrimination based on skin colour or disability, I am not subject to hate because of my heterosexuality. and also I am safe from being oppressed of Ageism because I do not fall in those ages.
in the light of these 4 dominant groups, which I was not aware of, but I am going to share a personal experience that I was always reminded of my status as not being a Canadian by my fellow friends who belonged to the same culture and ethnic background. I was asked not to be very hopeful and not to look for an equal job opportunity as I may have in my birth Country. these talks made me lose my confidence and I was blind folded to actually see my privileges. The situation prompted me to continue my education and obtain credentials from a Canadian Academic organization. This assignment made me realize how important my Social Identity is and I can actually count my Privilege. I am young woman in my 30s. sufficiently qualified from Medical Institute, in a very good health and shape and to be able to work. In addition, my heterosexuality and all of the dominant points made me realize that i can take advantage of all of it and have an impact in the Canadian Mainstream.

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Not everyone has to be their self to make it through. I have the Triangle door, if not than I need to make my Triangle door to make it through.

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Part 2: My Social Location  within the Webs of Oppression:

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Part 2: My Social Location  within the Webs of Oppression:

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My social location in the box of oppression developed by Robin Buyers gives me 7 groups that are oppressed or at least prone to being oppressed. and they are as follows.
according to Race, I find my race belonging to the the oppressed group. although I am originally an Aryan which is considered a high ranked race , and for which I am not very proud. but I account Central Asian, born in Afghanistan, which is a third world country and had always been accupied by one or another, specially terrorist groups because of its strategic location.
according to Ethnicity, I belong to to a group that is targeted more in Canadian Public context. and that is being a Muslim and from Afghanistan. English is not my First language. so whenever I encounter someone I am commented as you have an accent, where are you from?
being a Muslim gives everyone a sense of Phobia. and I never expose my religion until I don't have to. when I get asked at occasions, sometimes I need to hide it or say I am humanist. My identity falls among the groups who oppresses me for a benefit or interest for a dominants group.
my status in Canada I belong to second group. There is a lot of hate for Afghan Muslims because they consider us all terrorists and fighters. An Uber driver once told me why do you Afghans like guns so much. I am stigmatized as terrors and this can be interpreted as intentionally disempowering of the group of people I belong.
Through this assignment it became clear to me that that I belong to five groups that suffer from injustice while my position in the group of privileges' does not exceed four. this greatly affects my social location. for example I may face injustice for being a woman, also based on race, religion for being classifies as terrorist, I also face hate for being a newcomer and foreigner with a different language, to Canada and most importantly discrimination based on my working class or poor status.
according to Occupation my identity is within the second group. which is targeted by the Canadian society. because I am from working class and the poor class with a very low income.
my personal experience that I have faced in Canada is not finding a good job according to my career. Although I have all the required qualifications, university degree and related experience. but still I am being discriminated for being a newcomer. Not getting any Job. the society does not value a newcomer. we are devalued and considered low and different that Canadians. it weakens the group that I belong and halts any opportunity of participating in development or influence of our self powers. I do not accept all this because I have always been striving to change internalizing negative thoughts on the personal and social levels.
While analyzing my personal identity based on the social power scale developed by (Inns and Meyers), I belong to the Mainstream group in Canadian society with different identities like gender. For example I am a woman, and my gender identity is same like my social identity. also sex, I identify as a female which gives me a privilege than the LGBTQAs although not powerful enough than male. according to sexual orientation, I am heterosexual and have three children. my age is between 35-55 and this gives me privilege of being young and able to work according to Mainstream of Canada. in spite of all this privilage it is very unfair and pathetic, that my social identity still falls into the group who face discrimination and injustice and disempowerment. in the scale of social power I DO NOT belong to Canadian Mainstream. thus I do not have enough power (level 2), only because I am a single Mom/widow, and newcomer to Canada.
according to race I belong to a group where my skin colour is between white and black. I am not white enough to have enough power. again ranked level 2.
I have good health, have enough strength and not disabled. and I am not obese. so according to the scale of social power based on Disability I belong to the group who has power.
according to physical look I belong to the dominant group. I am average tall and most of the groups find me attractive. but according to the earning group, I am in the not powerful category.
I am well educated, and I have Medical Doctor degree, multilingual, married but widowed, I  have some power which is sometimes not considered enough.
I do not have social strength according to employment, Citizenship and religion as well as being a woman. so I may not have the power to change the society. over all, with regard to social mobility, two contexts can be seen in my social identity. in my birth country, my strength level is heading upwards, I had a distinguished social status and had all the access to financial resources, but in the Canadian society the graph is heading downwards.

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Single Parent of three Kids

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- I identify as heterosexual and woman.
- I was married to a man and have three kids now.
- I have a boyfriend now :)

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- I was born in a coherent family where my mother and father both lived in the same household.
- I had a very healthy childhood, with good education and adequate care and love from my parents.
- I live with my three children as a widow and single Mom now.

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- I identify as a woman (female)
- my gender identity corresponds with my identity

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- I come originally from Aryan Race that has always been counted as a privilege in my country.
- Aryan is originally given to a group of people who speak an archaic Indo-European language and was thought to have settled in ancient Iran, Afghanistan, and the Indian subcontinent.

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I was due to my Abled body and healthy living that I was able to win the Equator Initiative Award for Earth and Reforestation in 2015.

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I was born in Baghlan City, Afghanistan, although a small town but my parents and grandfather were well educated.

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Born in an educated family, Urban living

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Born in an educated family, Urban living