Ratna Omidvar
Executive Director, The Maytree Foundation

Where were you born?
India.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to run a school.

What inspired you to do that?
I remember as a child wondering why was it that I went to school when so many other kids did not.

What led you to where you are today?
It’s a journey of many accidents. My arrival in Canada is an accident. I came because of what is happening in Iran, never intended to come here. Life throws you many curveballs. And so you choose certain paths and journeys. It’s these decisions that you make that have life-changing implications. That’s what happened to me.

How did you come to Maytree?
I am a teacher. Technically, I’m a teacher of German as a second language. And even I realized it was going to be rather difficult for me to teach German to Canadians who would not want to learn it from an Indian. And so I started to look around for other opportunities and somehow, accidentally, got involved in the not-for-profit sector. Which was a whole eye-opener to me because the two societies I had lived in up until that point: West Germany which certainly did not have a healthy civil society sector because everything is state-managed and state-run, and India where there was largely chaos at that point, 25, 30 years ago. And I found this concept fascinating that citizens got together and did things and didn’t expect to get paid. I was very attracted to this and I said, ‘This is what I want to pursue.’ At that point I wasn’t thinking about a career. All I needed was a job. I don’t think many immigrants think of careers. They think, ‘What do I need today to survive tomorrow?’ That was really my situation as well. So, I was fortunate enough to shoulder my way into the not-for-profit sector. And in a sense that was the beginning of my career because I’ve always stayed in the not-for-profit sector.

What’s in it for you?
It’s two things. One: the knowledge that your work is going towards improving people’s lives at an individual level. And even though the numbers of individuals you impact on may be quite small, it’s an extremely empowering experience. Second, now after 25 years in the sector, understanding that in fact you can make systems change and attitudes shift through working both at the grassroots and the policy level.

What’s your greatest challenge?
I know we celebrate diversity but I want it to be a living, lived celebration, as opposed to a poster child. I actually think we need to focus on inclusion which is a much more proactive word for what we’re trying to do. Inclusion is my biggest challenge.

How do you overcome that challenge?
You have to work at it at multiple levels but I think it’s about a number of factors. There are three key indicators: You cannot have inclusion without economic inclusion. You cannot have inclusion without political inclusion. And you cannot have inclusion without civic engagement. It’s a matter of changing our thinking; it’s a matter of changing our attitudes; it’s a matter of changing our behaviors.

Do you feel you’ve made a difference?
I think I’ve come to make a difference. And I wouldn’t say it’s me, it’s a movement we’re trying to create.

Do you still have any dreams of your own that you want to fulfill?
I want to be a good gardener. I want to know how to make things grow better.