Anoosha Rahim, a Master of Development Practice (MDP) student at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and University of Waterloo, is passionate about building livelihoods that are sustainable, accessible and safe for families – particularly women.

Her path here began in grassroots welfare work across social risk mitigation and social safety net portfolios, where she worked closely with low-income families to understand their circumstances and connect them with the right training, employers, or a path to starting their own small business, including persons with disabilities she helped set up as independent entrepreneurs. She carried this same instinct into four years of ethics governance and strategy at Easypaisa Digital Bank (formerly Telenor Microfinance Bank), where her contribution helped raise the institution’s integrity index from 79% to 90%. In 2024, she co-founded a pilot project testing whether pairing financial support with psychosocial care could help families break cycles of poverty, an experience that left her with questions about long-term impact she couldn’t resolve without formal training, which is what brought her to this program.

Anoosha hopes to build systems that create lasting, dignified livelihoods for women and their families worldwide; not just short-term aid, but resilience that holds.