Waheed Jalalzada left Afghanistan and moved to the United States in 2014, and after receiving his master’s degree in public administration in the United States, he moved to Canada in late 2016 to achieve a further set of personal and professional milestones and goals.

Waheed earned the membership of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario (ATIO) in 2017 as an English – Farsi (Dari) translator.

After graduating from the Immigration Consultant Program at CDI College in Mississauga in mid 2018, Waheed worked with immigration consultants in the Greater Toronto Area for 4 years to learn immigration in practice. He earned his license to practice immigration in July 2021 and established Waheed Immigration Services. Waheed served the community by providing immigration legal support in Canada and abroad. The following is a brief indication of what he has accomplished in the last 4 and half years:

• 250+ blog posts written in Farsi (Dari) on immigration and everyday life in Canada that are free to access on: www.waheedimmigration.ca/da
• 4350+ inquiries (Calls, text messages and emails) from Afghans inside Canada and abroad are answered in details free of charge (60 months are 2,629,746 minutes; spending an average of 40 minutes on each inquiry, a number of 4,367 inquiries equal to 174,680 minutes. On an average, close to one and half hours a day is spent to provide free legal immigration consultation in the last 60 months)
• Saved Afghans an amount of $1,200,925 in immigration consultation cost (taking each consultation for an average fee of $275 x 4,367 consultations)
• Contributed to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency’s Immigration Fraud Prevention efforts by raising awareness on fraudulent advertisements, ghost immigration firms, and “too good to be true” offers from human traffickers
• By providing accurate information on Canadian immigration process, saved Afghans an estimated amount of over a million dollars that could go to human traffickers and fraudulent immigration firms
• Supported 10 families in the process of their immigration to Canada on a pro-bono basis and free of charge

Waheed recently started an initiatve to bring the community closer by providing them access to a marketplace on their mobile devices where it makes it easy for them to find employment and settelement services.

Waheed cofounded the “Center for Newcomer Empowerment” as a Canadian non-profit organization in December 2023 to make life easier and accessible for newcomers in Canada.

With over 10 years of experience in media management in Afghanistan, Waheed dedicated his career to empowering Afghan journalists and young men and women to be able to play a key role in decision-making processes at the national and international levels.

Waheed has worked with many reputable organizations including Faanoos Magazine as founder and director; the Media Coordination Group Afghanistan as steering committee member and projects coordinator; Radio Arman; Mashal and Woraz Magazines; Khorshid Film; the European Commission’s delegation to Afghanistan; Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU); Building Markets International; MedAir; the Italian Cooperation; the Afghan Organization for Human Rights and Environmental Protection (AOHREP); Afghanistan National Participation Organization; Social Volunteers Foundation; Afghan Ministry of Public Works; The Afghan Embassy in Washington D.C. and the Afghan Academy and the Society of Afghan Engineers in the United States of America.

During his career in Afghanistan, Waheed served his community in various ways including provision of free access to internet, library, basic and advanced journalism trainings to over 5,000 young afghans (through Fanoos Magazine), awareness raising campaigns for more than 1,200 journalists and media workers on drafted Access to Information Law, and the Afghan Journalists Employment Regulation (at the Media Coordination Group Afghanistan), training the management staff of more than 80 nonprofit organizations on 13 management subjects (at Building Markets International); and managing projects of civic education, women empowerment, and presidential election process awareness raising with over 500,000 direct and over 5 million indirect beneficiaries.

Waheed has translated several books from English and Urdu to Dari in the areas of journalism, social justice, politics and child healthcare.

Waheed has previously been awarded Kardan University’s ’40 Under 40 – The Rising Stars’ award and has received appreciations from the United Nations Special Representative in Afghanistan as well as the Consensus National Youth Political Party of Afghanistan for his work and dedication to empowering youth and raising awareness on democratic processes in the country.

Waheed is committed to earn another master’s degree in Immigration and Settlement, and a PhD in Public Policy from the Canadian well known, Toronto Metropolitan University. Waheed is married and father of three daughters.

Updated: December 2023