Find a Fellow
Sabrina Sassi

Sabrina Sassi

France and Tunisia

  • Program Year
  • 2015-17
  • Country of Current Residence
  • Canada
  • City/Town of Current Residence
  • Montreal
  • Current Position
  • Sauvé Fellow
  • Organization
  • Jeanne Sauvé Foundation
  • Profession(s)

  • Researcher, Activist, PhD Candidate

  • Sector(s)
  • Communications (including media), Marketing, Migrant culture, NGOs, Political science
  • Language(s)
  • French, English, Arabic, Spanish, Chinese
  • Mentor
  • Patrick Brennan, Executive Director, Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University; Peter Stoett, Department of Political Science, Concordia University
  • Interest(s) / Expertise
  • communications, culture, diversity, inclusion, politics
Scholar Twitter profile Scholar LinkedIn profile Scholar email address
Impact Statement

Sabrina strives to support advocacy and policy-making on the field by helping activists to benefit from the fruit of academic work. She is passionate about civic engagement, youth empowerment and having a positive impact on people’s lives.

Biography

Sabrina studied in Canada for a semester with a grant from “Youth around the world”. While in Canada, she participated in an international communication challenge launched by Microsoft. Sabrina and her team were ranked among the world Top 8 Most Talented Students in international communications. As part of the “Compagnons du Monde” program, she decided to create an international network to build cultural and social links between St John’s and Saint-Malo. It is with the support of this international network that she laid the foundation for her future intercultural projects.

Joining the African Diaspora Youth Network in Europe (ADYNE) helped her keep up the efforts to promote intercultural dialogue with a special focus on youth from the African diaspora. She has moderated and facilitated various workshops and lectures on civic engagement, democratic participation, youth culture, social innovation and the social economy.

Sabrina is a PhD Candidate studying political communications at Université Laval. Her main research focus was on how political communication practices involve the use of “big data” to target certain parts of the population.

As a Fellow

In alignment with their program’s theme of Public Leadership for Culturally Diverse Societies, the 2016-17 Sauvé Fellows decided to collectively explore the complexities of refugee integration in Canada. To advance their learnings, they led a critical reading group, conducted site visits, and met with a wide range of relevant stakeholders, including refugees and parliamentarians. Their team project’s goal was to develop and pilot an approach to refugee integration in a holistic and practical way that delivered both impact and thought leadership while espousing core values of agency, inclusivity, fairness and cultural sensitivity.

In tackling the issue of refugee integration and implementing their team project, the Fellows wrote a policy brief (which they presented to several ministers while in Ottawa) and an op-ed, produced a short film on refugee experiences in Montreal as well as organized a series of public events exploring refugee integration in Canada. 

Links: 

Portfolio