Indi Madar: Actively pushing boundaries | United College

Growing up in a Somali immigrant, single-parent household, Indi Madar was not encouraged to participate in physical activity or sports. After she began pushing herself to engage in strength training and physical recreation, she observed barriers to racialized women engaging in physical activity.

This summer, despite a busy schedule finishing her Master’s thesis in Sustainability Management, Indi joined St. Paul’s GreenHouse as one of the Fellows from the Big Ideas Challenge, focusing on the lack of representation of racialized women in physical activity.

“I had always been inspired by GreenHouse and all these young people who were taking on big problems and looking to solve them in practical ways,” says Indi, who attended a variety of GreenHouse events before applying to the Big Ideas Challenge."

This summer, she is holding “problem interviews,” where she meets with individuals, community organizations, and service providers to understand their perceptions of barriers, challenges and issues. “Based on what I learn through this research, I want to either validate or discard my assumptions.” She plans to run focus groups and to offer a pilot activity, such as a women’s-only swim or fitness class.

As she hoped and expected, being part of GreenHouse has helped in this process.

“GreenHouse is a passionate, bright community. People are joyful and helpful — people whose projects are more established still make time to help others. This support is very inspiring and refreshing.”

Although she is busy with her endeavours, Indi makes sure she practices what she preaches: “Just yesterday, I was at the gym. Every month, I try take on new exercise challenges so I’m pushing my own boundaries,” she says, adding that probably her biggest challenge is to stop analyzing and to start executing her project, even if she doesn’t feel entirely ready.