Decorative photoProud to be Me is a series of articles telling the stories of ordinary and extraordinary people in the Selwyn district. To mark International Women’s Day on March 8, Coen Lammers speaks to Lincoln academic Hafsa Ahmed about her work to empower immigrant women to be a success in their new homeland.

Speaking to Hafsa Ahmed, you wonder how she finds the time for a career as a university lecturer in Business Strategy, Leadership and Project Planning, while raising two teenagers  and delivering a multitude of programmes through the Lady Khadija Charitable Trust.

This year is the 10th anniversary of the Trust she founded with husband Raziuddin Syed to “empower communities through compassion, striving towards a future where we thrive and flourish together”.

Hafsa explains that the Trust’s values are Caring For Communities, Contributing towards Distributive Societies by Collaborating For Change with existing charities.

“We found out that New Zealand already has more charities per capita than any other country, so we decided the country did not need another charity competing for the same resources, and instead we decided to partner with existing charities,” says Ahmed who started recruiting volunteers to support the charity Help for the Homeless to prepare meals for communities from low socio-economic backgrounds.

Ten years on, the Lady Khadija volunteers continue to serve meals each month, but the Trust soon expanded into other areas, fundraising for the Blind Foundation and supporting the City Mission.

“We would find out what they needed and we would go and get it. We did that until 2019 when the mosque attack happened. That’s when we started asking ourselves what gaps there were in our society and what role we could play,” says Ahmed,

The charity changed focus to address misunderstandings and miscommunications between different religions and created interfaith dialogue through podcasts and its conference – Together in Humanity.

“What would happen in most of those podcast discussions was that we'd end up saying, oh, the different faiths are very similar in their teachings and values, which was our learning from that,” says Ahmed.

To create better understanding about different communities, the trust embarked on their biggest project, Immigrant Journeys, a series of video interviews which showcased the rich diversity that our most recent immigrants bring to this country, by former TVNZ journalist John Sellwood.  The project also included photos by Janneth Gil which were displayed in libraries throughout Canterbury.

“The idea was to take a camera into people's homes and show that immigrants live normal everyday lives, no different from anyone else, and we have been overwhelmed by the positive feedback. I think the videos have been watched over 50,000 times now.”

Through her work with the immigrant community, Ahmed realised that other immigrant women were facing the same battles she had experienced to carve out a career in a new country and she had the particular skills to guide them.

“With the experience and knowledge I had gained, I decided to offer my skills to migrant women by creating a course for them,” says Ahmed, who arrived in New Zealand in 2007 after a successful career in India, working for a British bank, and expected no problems finding similar work in Christchurch.

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“I started applying for jobs, but most of the time didn’t get a response. I applied for 200 to 300 jobs. I was so upset that one day when I did get a rejection I went back to them and got told I was too over-qualified and didn’t have any New Zealand experience,” says Ahmed who ended up accepting a job as a receptionist at a laptop service company, just to get a foot in the door.

“And I discovered I was not alone. I hear from women who have led big projects in their own country, major IT projects, but in New Zealand that experience does not get recognised, which causes huge frustration,” says Ahmed, who acknowledges that immigrant men have similar challenges,  but for women the rejection is often more emotional.

“It really hits your confidence quite a lot. And you start asking yourself “what is wrong with me?” and “what should I do?”.

To solve that last question, the Lady Khadija Trust started running courses to give immigrant women the tools to succeed in New Zealand, while keeping their own cultural identity, as well as giving them the opportunity to hear from other women sharing the same frustrations and learning how to navigate them.

“Canterbury is a particularly tight-knit community, and immigrants often don’t have the right entry point to break into that network to secure a job. So, in response, we created our own network to uplift ourselves. And not just immigrants, but an inclusive network with Pakeha and Tangata Whenua, people who want to support us, like Elle Archer, Michelle Shields or Cheryl Doig, women who are very well connected in the wider community.”

Ahmed says the testimonials from the graduates demonstrate the impact of the course, which has been so successful that the trust now also offers similar courses in Wellington and Auckland.

“For many women these courses have been life-changing,” says Ahmed who in 2023 was appointed as a Member of the Order of New Zealand for her work for ethnic communities and women.

The trust now also offers other master classes in policy and advocacy and more recently, an entry-level course on board governance.

“More organisations are looking for diversity on their boards, so there are opportunities for immigrant women to get a seat on a board, but in many cases they don’t fully understand what the roles of a board are or don’t have the finance and risk auditing skills and are not taken seriously.”

Ahmed explains that the governance course teaches participants about the specific roles of a board member and the difference between governance and operations.

“Often people jump on boards, but don’t understand the roles and responsibilities. So we help them understand their roles and some discover they are happier on the operational side, and do the stuff, instead of sitting on a board and working on the visionary stuff.”

Juggling many balls at university and at home, she is pleased the Lady Khadija Trust has evolved enough to employ a Programme Lead Coordinator and a Communications Advisor, so Ahmed and her husband have more time to focus on the family.

“At the start it was a much bigger commitment, organising and coordinating the volunteers, but now we have staff who run our programmes, so we are mainly focused on maintaining relationships and looking at the future of the trust.”

Last modified: 17 Mar 2026 9:00am