The way Fae Niyazi sees it, life is “a very beautiful battle.”
“You need to fight, you need to struggle, you need to resist...all the difficulties and at the end you can tell yourself, ‘I made it’.”
Niyazi is a water resource engineer at Gibraltar Mines in McLeese Lake, about an hour’s drive northeast of Williams Lake. Her story, though, doesn’t begin here, nor does it begin in Canada.
Niyazi was born and raised in Iran, where she got her PhD in water resource engineering. She worked for several years in Iran before deciding to immigrate to Canada, where she knew she could find opportunities not only to advance her career, but to do so as a woman.
“It’s really, really challenging for women all over the world, especially in the country I’m coming from, to shape their lives as they desire,” Niyazi said. “But I believe that we are powerful beings capable of achieving whatever we set in our minds despite all of the obstacles, hardships, challenges...all the difficulties.”
Niyazi first moved to Saskatchewan, which was no easy feat.
“The immigration process is long, demanding, frustrating,” she said. She came to Canada on her own, alone at a time when the world was facing a global pandemic. It was 2020, and it was difficult to find work, make friends or join activities as simple as going to the gym.
“But I never get disappointed, I was just trying, trying, trying very hard to make my life easier, just to make everything step by step...towards a new life, what I really wanted to be,” Niyazi said.
Niyazi found what she knew about water management in Iran’s dry climate differed from the Canadian context, so she decided to update her education. She made lots of connections while getting a master's degree in water security at the University of Saskatchewan, and after a few months of job searching, she landed at Gibraltar Mines.
Her husband, a civil engineer, joined her in Canada in 2022, and they are now happily settled in Williams Lake.
“I’m truly happy, (I) appreciate this opportunity to live in such a nice town,” Niyazi said.
As a water resource engineer, Niyazi helps to balance and manage Gibraltar's water resources, checking its quality and how it flows in and out of the mine.
She said it’s been challenging to get to where she is today, but she is happy.
“My hope is that every single woman develops an attitude that we can grow, we can earn what we are looking for and what we really deserve.”
