Page Content Zarqa NawazWriter, Journalist, Broadcaster, and FilmmakerBorn in Liverpool, England, Nawaz’s family moved to Brampton in the 1980s, where she attended Fallingdale Elementary School and Chinguacousy Secondary School. In her memoir, Nawaz explores the struggles of fitting in with her classmates as a child of immigrants, and being “the only brown girl in [her] class”.In March 2019, The City of Brampton celebrated Zarqa Nawaz’s induction with an evening of intimate storytelling and conversation hosted by Jael Richardson, Aristic Director of The FOLD. MediaBiographyZarqa Nawaz has a B.Sc from the University of Toronto and after being rejected from medical school she went on to create several short comedy films that focused on Muslim issues in Canada. When the National Film Board of Canada approached her to do something more serious, she was ready for it. Her 2005 ground-breaking documentary Me and the Mosque explored Muslim women’s battle with patriarchy in the mosque. Her comedy hit, Little Mosque on the Prairie, ran on CBC Television between 2007 and 2012. Most recently she has written a bestselling comedic memoir, Laughing All the Way to the Mosque, in which she explores what it was like to grow up as a Canadian of Muslim faith.
