2002 • Human Rights Award

SABRA DESAI



Sabra Desai who has in excess of fifteen years experience in training, consulting and teaching on issues of racism, equity and access here in Canada and abroad. She is a professor at Humber College and teaches Social Psychology and Counselling. She is a valued member of the Humber Academic Council and the Professional Development Council. 

Kellogg Fellow. Human rights, anti-racist and feminist activist. Educator, therapist and consultant. Sabra Identifies herself as a nationalized Canadian woman of South African Asian Muslim lineal descent. A survivor with the perseverance and strength necessary to live through an apartheid South Africa and the
patience and focus of one nurtured on a small farm in her native KwaZulu Natal.

Her volunteer and professional interventions and research have gained her recognition as an activist-educator. She has in excess of fifteen years experience in training, consulting and teaching on issues of “racism”, equity and access here in Canada and abroad and has conducted anti-racism, human rights education and training in Ethiopia, Guyana and South Africa.

A professor at Humber College, she teaches Social Psychology and Counselling.

She is a valued member of the Humber Academic Council and the Professional Development Council. She is also a resource person to the Critical Events Response Team at Humber. She is respected for her integrity and ability to bring together her personal experiences, education, background and common sense to inform her work. As an activist, Sabra brings a sharp critique to the tensions that emerge between racialized communities in the context of the colonial legacy and globalization.

Her volunteer commitments include establishing and facilitating the Critical Events Support Team launched by the Federation of Muslim Women in response to the needs of the Muslim community during the aftermath of September 11, 2001. She has also just returned from her second summer of working with individuals living with AIDS and HIV for the Mndeni Clinic, Hibiscus Coast, South Africa.