By: Esther Liu, Contributor
Yahia Hassan is a first-year student in life sciences. He co-founded the nonprofit, The Altruist.
The Silhouette: What are you passionate about?
Hassan: I'm really interested in how people interact with each other and what makes people choose one thing over something else. I'm also really into biology and other sciences so I like to look at that in terms of the psychological side of it. In terms of humanitarianism, it's really important to get that perspective and over the years I've sort of trained myself to try and get empathy and get open-mindedness and perspective from other people.
When did you start getting involved in your community?
My first volunteer opportunity was back in Egypt in Grade 9. [W]e went to one of the villages that were damaged over the years and we re-decorated and refurbished that village. We built a whole community centre for them with a group of 50 people. I think it's the experience of helping others without really getting anything in return, right? I'm not getting paid or anything but I'm still doing good for others. Knowing that they now live in a place that I helped improve.
Later in high school, I took more leadership roles where it's more of helping a bigger organization. So, I'm volunteering for something: I'm helping ship medicine boxes for example and I don't know anything about it later on, right? But I don't like the idea of that because I don't know where it's going. I'm not sure if it's actually going to go to the place where it's intended.
Between Grade 11 and Grade 12, I was volunteering with Trillium Health Partners. There, I had to really think on the spot about how to help people directly. As an intern, I had to step up right because nurses and doctors are not going to be free to help you. That was a good experience of helping other people no matter what the situation is. So a lot of empathy came with it. [I thought] “right this is hard, but I have to help this person because they can't really help themselves or they don't they can't fathom helping themselves.”
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What is The Altruist?
The Altruist is a youth journalism organization. We were starting out with five people. Now we're over 20 people and we have people in nine countries contributing. The purpose of The Altruist is, through youth journalism, giving other youth a voice and giving them a platform. What we're really focusing on is humanitarian issues. It's a lot about goodwill without anything in return.
How did The Altruist start?
Originally, it was two people: me and a friend of mine. We were first based in White Oak Secondary School. Over time, we contacted people that we knew from our school and a few people from Egypt. We now have people from Canada, the UK, Egypt, Indonesia, China, Pakistan and India. We started back in March – not coincidental with the pandemic.
But when the pandemic hit, there was a lot of news that was misinformed and contained a lot of implied and explicit hatred [with] each headline. So we wanted to create a safer source of journalism and information. The goals for the organization are to create honest news and news that doesn't spark fear. [We want] to influence and inspire other people to go out of their way to do good for other people. Since this is a non-profit and we're really focused on the goodwill of our actions, we want others to do the same.
What are you working on now with The Altruist?
For the audience, we want workshops in different schools or venues to inspire change and inspire people to be good. Right now, we have webinars every month where we would talk about different issues. So, for example, if we're talking about oppression against racialized communities, we might talk about oppression in the medical community, in the film industry and more. We want people to be aware and, through that awareness, to say: "Oh, this is not a good thing and this is something that I can change within myself.”
By: Esther Liu, Contributor
What are your plans for Halloween this year?
My daughter is really into Harry Potter so she is dressing up. Her favourite house is Ravenclaw, so she has a school outfit for it. My dog – it's so funny – she's going to be dressed up as a UPS delivery dog. It's so hilarious 'cause there's a little box and so when she's walking, it looks like she's carrying it and she has her little hat. I'm not 100 per cent sure what I'm going to be doing – there's typically a student group, UNICEF, that gets this stuff organized so I think that's happening but I'm not 100 per cent sure.
Voting is now open #MacIntroPsych students. You pick what I will wear to lecture on Mon Oct 30 to celebrate Halloween supporting @UNICEF
— Joe Kim (@ProfJoeKim) October 20, 2017
Do you have any costume plans of your own?
For the last several years, all of my Halloween costumes have been decided by students, by UNICEF. I know that [Michelle] Cadieux, she and her husband, they have a lot of costumes – they're totally into Halloween. So I think she said that she could lend me something. I don't know other than that . . . Maybe I might join my daughter and dress up as a professor from Harry Potter.
When did you start the tradition of dressing up?
I think that started maybe five or six years ago for UNICEF. Last year, the students chose Super Mario. I think the year before that I might have been Black Widow [and the year before that [was] Wonder Woman. [The] year before that – what's her name from Frozen? – Elsa and the year before that [was] Princess Leia.
Thanks #MacIntroPsych students for supporting @UNICEF for today's lecture. Hope you had a Wonderful day! pic.twitter.com/zA5HmEg60h
— Joe Kim (@ProfJoeKim) October 30, 2017
What are the student reactions?
They seem to really enjoy it because I'm lecturing wearing the Halloween costume and at the end of the lecture I always have a lot of students coming up who want to take pictures. If you go on Twitter there's a bunch of pictures that have been posted over the years.
Do you have any favourite costumes?
I would say my favourite costumes have been the ones that the students picked – my daughter really gets a kick out of it too. But, I'm a really big fan of Star Wars, so maybe the Princess Leia one is my favourite.
Do you have any ideal costumes?
Again, I'm a big fan of Star Wars so maybe it would be Obi-Wan Kenobi, that'd be kind of cool. It would be a really comfortable costume to wear as well.
Thanks #MacIntroPsych students for supporting @UNICEF and for selecting my Halloween costume. Note to self: it's not easy lecturing with an itchy moustache and using a slide advancer wearing oversized gloves. https://t.co/hZVUEwEP1W pic.twitter.com/nUY84veYZ5
— Joe Kim (@ProfJoeKim) October 29, 2019
I wanted to ask you about some Halloween phenomena. Do you remember the creepy clown phenomenon in 2016?
Was that 2016? I don't think I remember it too well. I think clowns are creepy though – I don't think that they look funny at all. I think it looks really creepy. I would say I find them as creepy as sharks. I have a mildly irrational fear of sharks and being attacked by a shark just from watching Jaws. Is there anyone who likes clowns? I don't like creepy dolls – you know those old-fashioned like creepy dolls? Yeah, you couldn't dare me to sleep in a room with creepy dolls and clowns for a million dollars.
One theory as to why clowns are scary is the concept of the uncanny valley. The concept was first introduced in the 1970s by Masahiro Mori, who coined the term to describe his observation that as robots appear more human-like, they become more appealing. But once they reach a certain point – the uncanny valley – this appeal becomes a feeling of strangeness, a sense of unease and a tendency to be scared. Is there anything you can tell us about this concept?
It kinda reminds me of this optical illusion called the facial distortion effect – it's really interesting. A colleague of mine developed it. We're experts at looking at and recognizing patterns and especially faces. This is a really interesting phenomenon – look it up, the facial distortion effect on YouTube by Jason Tangun [CW: video contains very disturbing imagery]. If you just stare and compare human faces side by side, there's actually a lot of differences that you can look at. So, for example, how far apart are your eyes or how big are your eyes, where is your nose and so on. If you actually force yourself to compare side by side and then you go through these comparisons and see the differences, people's faces start to look grotesque.
C/O: ProcrastiKnitters Exec Team
By: Esther Liu, Contributor
What inspired you to found the Procrastiknitters?
Valencia Gomes: We wanted to create a community at Mac for knitting and crocheting to bring people together. Knitting and crocheting is a skill but you can get a lot out of it: you can make things related to characters you like or just things you're interested in. So we're hoping even though our club is just knitting and crocheting, it would help people to meet others who have similar interests. We also want to meet people who have this interest and we knew already that there are a lot of students who were interested or already did knit or crochet. So we knew it was something that would work. It isn't just me facing two other people! This club needs to happen. So, who else to do it then both of us?
Valencia Gomes pictured here. C/O ProcrastiKnitters Exec Team.
We also want to meet people who have this interest and we knew already that there are a lot of students who were interested or already did knit or crochet. So we knew it was something that would work. It isn't just me facing two other people! This club needs to happen. So, who else to do it then both of us?
Mahimah Reancy: We also want to donate items, to give back to the community through things that we actually make. So I think that the members can feel accomplished from this hobby that they just started to actually help other people in different ways. We both went to high school together and joined this knitting and crocheting club. We would knit blankets and hats for homeless shelters in Toronto and give them out during the coldest days of winter. So we thought it was kind of weird that we haven't seen something similar at McMaster. There hasn't really been a knitting or crocheting club at all.
How are you finding running the club online?
Reancy: I think it got a lot harder because of COVID. We originally had so many plans at the beginning of March, but then everything's online, making it all a level harder. So far, there are minor difficulties that we're overcoming but everything is still running smoothly.
I think it got a lot harder because of COVID. We originally had so many plans at the beginning of March, but then everything's online, making it all a level harder. So far, there are minor difficulties that we're overcoming but everything is still running smoothly.
Mahimah Reancy pictured here. C/O ProcrastiKnitters Exec Team.
Gomes: I think as we're teaching people a skill, it's really hard to do over Zoom. When we're using the needles, you have to show people what you're doing and when people need help they need to show you what they're doing. That has definitely been the hardest part. Like a week ago, we had our first instructing event where we showed beginners how to knit and crochet. It actually went pretty well but I was expecting the worst, because how do you show someone how to do something so hands-on through a camera? Nobody's a professional YouTuber so no one had a camera to show all the different sides and angles. So in that sense, it was hard to get over that. But our instructors were really great and they adapted and found ways to overcome those barriers by showing their work through the camera.
What are you hoping members will get walking away from this experience?
Reancy: We want them to be able to knit and crochet and be able to express themselves through something that makes them happy to do. I mean, there are so many possibilities with knitting and crocheting.
Gomes: We hope that this is a step into the knitting and crocheting world. Since we do have a lot of beginners, we're hoping that this will be the push they need to get into it and learn the basic skills so they can continue and make their own projects. We've actually had like a couple of people message us on Instagram and send us pictures of what they're making. There are people in the comments saying that they didn't realize the time passing, that they just had a midterm or have been studying all day and that it's so relaxing. That is definitely one of the points of having this type of club in a school atmosphere – it's to relieve people from their stress of school and like whatever other stress we may have by knitting and crocheting. So, I hope at the end of the year they can find that knitting and crocheting can help them destress or cope.
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
I just graduated from McMaster with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art. I started in 2012 and had somewhat like a rough start; changed my mind, left, worked in between and then came back. It took me a while to figure out that Studio Art was the right progran for me but when I did I feel like it really paid off and shaped who I am today.
What is “I’m the Bomb”?
I created two, large scale banners that depict two women, one who wears the hijab or a veil and the other one does not. Both are wearing shades and they’re also wearing t-shirts that say “I’m the bomb” in the two pieces hanging beside one another. The piece kind of works on a few different levels. One of the most obvious levels is addressing our innate prejudice against certain groups of people and who is more privileged than others to wear or represent certain things or what kinds of stigma do we attach to certain groups of people versus others. It’s also a piece that, at least for me the way I view it, is empowering for the Muslim community. In the face of radical groups like ISIS today kind of making a claim for Islam and using the Muslim identity to do heinous acts, this is sort of to address,in an unapologetic way, that people have created this idea of who Muslims are based on falsehood. We can’t express ourselves in a way like that without certain questions being raised about whether or not we as just people are safe to be around. A lot of people took this piece in the opposite direction. It infuriated a lot of people and I was aware that it could possibly do that. I was aware that people might think it’s just recycling the image of violence back out there again. But I would claim maybe it could do that if the woman on the left was by herself. She’s not, she’s contrasted with another image, and in that conversation that happens between them is the point of the piece. The last level, at least based on the feedback that I got, was that a lot of people who identify as female are excited about how empowering it is. We don’t often get to say “I’m the bomb”, like I’m awesome, or wear shirts that say that. We often come across items of clothing that have different kinds of messages on them.
“This is sort of to address in an unapologetic way, that people have created this idea of who Muslims are based on falsehood We can’t express ourselves in a way like that without certain questions being raised.”
Can you tell me more about the feedback you received?
The first week that it was up, it went viral on social media and a lot of people thought that it was an advertisement on a subway done by H&M. So, in light of what H&M did in December, they took it as that. So some people got it, some people didn’t, but I was also aware of that when I made it. I knew what H&M had done and I knew that there was a possibility that people would take it that way and that’s okay, because it plays into the dialogue or the conversation surrounding the work. It’s upsetting that people didn’t dig a little deeper, didn’t try to figure out what it really was. Not for recognition or anything like that, but that it wasn’t an act of racism towards anybody and actually there’s a deeper message behind it. That was a tough weekend. I had a lot of hate mail but it was good overall.
Why did you choose to display this piece in the Student Centre?
For a while I had been creating work for gallery spaces and museums, and I actually struggled with getting people who were part of a community that didn’t interact with art to view the work. I was creating work for Muslims to view as well as other people and unfortunately, although there’s a move towards the arts in the Muslim community, most of the time the spaces, especially in Hamilton and the surrounding areas, are not occupied by people of color, let alone Muslims or religious people or people who like to create artwork about their religious identity. I knew that if I wanted to reach Muslims and talk about the things that address us and who we are and have that seen by everyone and not just Muslims, I had to bring it into a public space. I had never done anything on a public level before so I thought that since I had my graduating show happening at the McMaster Museum of Art that having it somewhere close by would be a good idea. I liked the idea of it being on display in the University specifically because it’s an institution of education, it’s a place where people are still shaping who they are. So it’s just a great opportunity to educate people in a place where they’re already learning.
“Community projects like this, where learning is happening outside of a classroom and you get to interact with it is a type of learning that’s more accessible...”
Why is this piece important to the McMaster community?
Other than the fact that there’s a big Muslim community at McMaster, I think that, at least from my time here, the arts program itself isn’t really known all that much. One thing that I find is really great about this piece is that if people get intrigued by it and dig a little deeper about where it came from they’ll discover the program. It’s good representation for something that brings a lot of experiential learning to the McMaster community and I think often gets overlooked. At the end of the day, you get a degree and you go to classes and stuff like that, but community projects like this, where learning is happening outside of a classroom and you get to interact with it is a type of learning that’s more accessible and it’s relatable to everybody. It’s that connection between the artist and the viewer that doesn’t necessarily happen in a classroom or a lecture setting for everybody because it just crosses that boundary and crosses hierarchies too. I’m not there when people are looking at the work. I’m not like some authoritative figure. So I’m able to just speak to people without having that baggage with me. It’s a form of experiential learning and I think McMaster can really benefit from having more of it outside of the McMaster Museum of Art. Not to say that what’s going on in the museum is an amazing, it is. But I’d like to see more artwork on campus because I feel like people enjoyed it.
Ken Hall stepped foot onto this campus in 1951. After graduating from the Honours Geography program in 1955 and following a dedicated teaching career, he became the only two-term president of the McMaster Alumni Association in twenty years. During that time, he led a program which links female graduates to first year female students-in-residence.
Hall is also a founding member of the Student Recruiting Committee, has created an annual leadership conference on campus for high school students and is a co-founder and first president of the Geography Alumni Branch. Being a wearer of many hats, he will soon be adding a graduate’s cap to the collection during the upcoming Social Science convocation ceremony where Hall will be receiving an Honorary Doctorate of Law.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
What was McMaster like back then?
Having four major buildings that were here on campus at that time was a little bit confusing, getting to classes and things of that nature. You didn't quite know where to go when you first came in. No one instructs you and tells you “hey, this is where you're going”. So, you're hunting around the first couple of days to figure out where you are and what to do and so on.
It was basically all boys. Not saying that there weren't girls here. There were some some girls here in nursing program things that sort it but it was basically boys. That's the way the university was at that particular time. It's not the way it's not the way it should be, but that's the way it was then.
What is the biggest change on campus today?
The thing the thing that really amazes me about McMaster is how it has changed with the school’s population. Right now, you get people here from all over the world who come in and go to the university. There are a lot more women at the university now, too. I really think that's going in the right direction. It's just my feeling of what a university should be. I mean, you're taking your courses but a lot of the things that you do [at university] are exchanging information with other students.
When you have all these people coming in from all over the world, it’s just a wonderful opportunity to mix with them and get their feelings on things. It enriches your experience being here when that's done. It's not easy to do. I guess on campus people tend to stay in their little groups, but there are ways of breaking through on that.
Tell me about your time here at Mac.
My parents had moved to Montreal and I said I wanted to go to Mac, and this is a depression year. It wasn't the time where your parents are working to provide money for you to go to university. If you got here, you got here on your own. My dad got me a job at the Canadian National Railway at that time, [working the] five to one shift. So, I was at the university until four o'clock and then went right down to the to the CNR to work. It was tiring, and it wasn't exactly the way I expected it to be because it was a tiring experience.
There were times when I could get time off to do certain events that were were going on around campus, but I was going to work all the time and at one o'clock at night when I'd be coming home, I'd be trying to do my homework. So, I can't say "well, I had lots of fun playing cards”. It wasn't part of my life at all coming in here. I got through it, but it was it was a struggle. It really was a struggle for me.
What is one piece of advice you would give to students today?
The one thing I want to point out to them, that I think one of the key things at university, besides all the learning you put in, is making friendships. That's the key thing. In my experience, you can't do very much in this world unless you have a lot of friends to help you. So, I would say that's the thing to get the most out of in university.
