We’re proud to introduce our 2021 Local Journalism Fellows. The fellowship is a 10-week, paid opportunity for aspiring and emerging journalists from communities underrepresented in journalism. This year’s fellows will be working alongside us as we prepare our fall issue on precarious labour. We’re thrilled to welcome Reina Cowan, Zeahaa Rehman, Tahmeed Shafiq, and Mirusha Yogarajah to The Local!
Reina Cowan is a writer and radio host from Ontario. Her work has appeared in The Charlatan, Stories North, TRAD Magazine, and on CKCU-FM. She is interested in storytelling with a purpose to empower marginalized communities.
Zeahaa (pronounced Zaha) Rehman is a Pakistani-Canadian freelance journalist who likes deconstructing everything from pop culture to politics with an intersectional lens. Her work has been published in The Walrus, Chatelaine, Flare Canada, The RepresentAsian Project, and more.
Tahmeed Shafiq is a writer and journalist. He is interested in stories that are complicated, technical, and intrinsically human. He is an undergraduate at the University of Toronto. His journalism has appeared in The Varsity and The Pigeon, and his fiction has appeared in Lightspeed Magazine.
Mirusha is a filmmaker, writer, and artist who grew up in Texas and currently resides in Toronto, Canada. Their work aims to interrogate the multifaceted experiences of being a person on the margins and the delicate and intimate experiences they host alongside survival. They enjoy their friends, their dog Neptune, and Bananagrams.
More from this issue
The Battle Over a 475-Metre Bike Lane on Marlee Avenue
In Toronto, even the most modest bike lane proposal is met with outsized anger and fear.
The Local’s 2024 Year in Review
Gather ‘round the warm glow of The Local Slack channel as we chat through our favourite stories of the year.
The Killing of the Science Centre
The 55-year old museum shuttered without warning one Friday in June. Then devastated staff were given four months to dismantle it. A former employee on the last days of a beloved institution.
Rachel Chernos Lin Wins Don Valley West By-Election
The Toronto District School Board chair beat out former right-wing columnist Anthony Furey in a fiercely partisan battle.
Here Are the Don Valley West By-Election Candidates
The only place to find fact-checked biographies and election platform summaries for all the candidates in Ward 15—Don Valley West's by-election for city councillor on November 4, 2024.
Live Results From the Don Valley West By-Election
Real-time results from election night, starting at 8 p.m. on November 4, 2024.
How a By-Election in Don Valley West Became a Contentious, Partisan Fight
Voting in Ward 15 is usually a sleepy affair. But with accusations of bigotry, legal threats, and behind-the-scenes manoeuvring, the by-election has narrowed into a heated race between right-wing commentator Anthony Furey and TDSB chair Rachel Chernos Lin.
The Creeping Threat to Trans Rights in Toronto
Toronto is seen by many as a progressive bastion, but as anti-trans sentiment grips right-wing politics abroad and in Canada—including here in Ontario’s biggest city—local advocates are bracing themselves.
When Environmentalism is Weaponized Against the Unhoused
From a proposed pollinator garden at St. Stephen-in-the-Fields to tree trimmings and ‘grass remediation’—how the city uses green rhetoric to displace the homeless.
Making Space for Queer Community, Between Banquet Tables and Dim Sum Carts
For many queer, racialized Torontonians, Church and Wellesley doesn’t feel welcoming. As they push for inclusion, they’re also building their own spaces far from the Village.