Looking at Sherifa Razak, one would probably not assume she was an international student from northern Italy. She is 21 years old, wears a hijab and was born in Ghana. Her family emigrated to Italy when she was just a toddler.
Razak and her younger Italian-born siblings all speak fluent Italian, English, and Dagomba, a northern Ghanaian language. She learned English from watching YouTube.
After completing her marketing program in high school, Razak followed her true passion and enrolled in Humber’s two-year Fashion Arts and Business diploma program last September.
“I really like everything that relates to fashion: fashion shows, fashion magazines, fashion news, everything,” she said. “In Italy, there are a lot of fashion schools, but they're quite expensive, so that's the reason why I decided to, like, choose somewhere else.”
Razak said she was very excited to discover a new country and lifestyle and to see how people from other countries view fashion.
She said she was stunned to notice some major differences.
“Italian people dress very nicely. We try to dress up for everything, even to throw the garbage out,” she said. “You usually don't see people going out in sweatpants and sweaters.”
Razak said she appreciates how laid-back Canadians are with respect to fashion and said that one rarely sees people wearing Crocs in Italy.
“That's something I really like, they're not really judgmental about what you wear,” she said. “In Italy, especially in fashion school, people dress up, like, a lot, and they wear shoes that are very expensive.”
Razak said she enjoys expressing her fashion sense by wearing a variety of colourful hijabs and matching them with her outfits.
She said this is the first time she is spending Ramadan by herself, and this sometimes makes her feel sad. Ramadan is a holy month for Muslims, focused on fasting and prayer.
“Ramadan is the month to really spend time with your family,” she said. “I'm not really alone, though, because I still have my residence friends.”
The war in the Middle East is never far from her thoughts. Razak said she finds it distressing, especially during Ramadan, and hurting so many children in Muslim countries.
“I really hope that things can get fixed soon and that we can get to a point of our lives where wars are not really a thing anymore,” she said.
