Two recent McGill University graduates are among the newest recipients of the Pathy Foundation Fellowship. The national program supports young leaders to dedicate their first year after university to a community and cause they care about and turn community-based ideas into action.
Maimouna Mbengue, who recently completed a Master of Science in Public Health, will use her award to develop Healing with Compassion: Senegal Postpartum Depression Prevention, a community-based initiative for pregnant and postpartum women on the outskirts of Dakar, Senegal.
Mikal Nazarani, who earned a BA in Anthropology with minors in International Development and South Asian Studies, will advance a free literacy and creative expression program for youth in Montreal’s Parc-Extension neighbourhood.
Each Fellow receives a $50,000 living and initiative stipend, along with mentorship, training and a network of peers and experienced practitioners. The program helps Fellows test their ideas, develop practical skills and build initiatives that can have a lasting impact.
Mbengue and Nazarani, selected for 2026-27, will be part of the fellowship’s 11th cohort.
Support for new mothers
Born and raised in Dakar, Mbengue was inspired by conversations with women in her community who described the pressures, isolation and loss of identity that can accompany motherhood.
Her initiative will bring women together in Mother Wellness Circles, where participants can discuss their experiences, find support and build connections in an environment that is safe, welcoming and non-judgmental.
The idea draws on the belief that people can heal each other.
“I’ve always been so grateful for the friendships and sisterhood in my own life which have gotten me through a lot of hard times,” said Mbengue. “I really believe in that as a major driver of healing, and that’s what I want to embody through these Circles.”
She said her McGill education gave her the skills to understand the determinants of health, but it also provided much more.
“Perhaps most importantly, my degree challenged me to examine power. I learned community empowerment approaches, decolonized frameworks and equity-centred practices that push back against systems that have historically excluded the most vulnerable,” said Mbengue. “It taught me to check my privilege before entering any space, to show up with humility, cultural competency and a genuine commitment to putting the community in the lead.”
Storytelling as a tool for connection
Nazarani’s project builds on his work with Jugaar Popups through Brique par Brique, a Montreal organization focused on community development and neighbourhood revitalization, where he developed relationships rooted in shared diasporic community. During his Fellowship year, he said he plans to combine academic tutoring with workshops in poetry, oral storytelling and other forms of creative expression.
For Nazarani, storytelling is more than a tool for improving literacy. It is a way for young people to explore identity, articulate their experiences and develop confidence in their own voices.
“I feel like everything is a story, and that all kids have some sort of story they’re interested in telling or experiencing,” he said.
His time at McGill played a significant role in developing that perspective, he said. He points to Pasha Khan, a professor in the Institute of Islamic Studies, and Khan’s course Melancholic Migrants as particularly formative.
“It was through that class that I got to engage with a diversity of narratives, histories and memories that often go unexplored in western academia, as well as conduct my own oral history with family and write the story of my own positionality as a student settler – exploring the labels and circumstances that both define and enable my existence.”
During this time, Nazarani created a short film about his late grandfather, drawing on the collective memories of family members.
“Understanding these things for yourself allows you to then better listen to the stories of others. It’s a collective act, essentially,” he said.
Putting learning into practice
For both Fellows, McGill has been more than a place to earn a degree. Their experiences in the classroom and through community work have helped them develop the knowledge, questions and practical skills they are now bringing beyond the University.
Their Pathy Fellowship year represents the next step: putting that learning into practice while creating opportunities for others to find their own voices, strengthen their communities and imagine what comes next.