Our team
Get to know us.
Each person here brings their own experience and skills to the work. Below are their stories, in short.
Board of directors and executives
Ishaq Khan
Founder, Executive Director & Chairperson
Born in 1993, Ishaq came to Canada from Pakistan in 1999. He started Pathway to Hope to return some of the benefit he has had from this country. Mental health and addiction challenges among Canadian youth have grown, particularly since the pandemic, and his answer is education people can actually reach.
His brother's battle with mental health shaped the rest of it. The help his family found rarely fit their culture or faith, and they went through it feeling unsupported. Later, Jessica Qubrossi told him about a youth services program that closed abruptly, leaving vulnerable young people a few weeks to find somewhere to go. The two of them built Pathway to Hope around those gaps.
Omid Ghiyasian
Director of Technology
The youngest of five children, with two brothers and three sisters, Omid put his time and energy into establishing Pathway to Hope as a nonprofit. He works in information technology and has led the build from its inception. What he wants is a platform that is easy to use, accessible and modular enough to last, without collecting technical debt along the way.
Growing up as an immigrant in Canada, he noticed how few organizations had diversity in their leadership, and how often that showed up as culturally insensitive services. He also saw slow processes and outdated technology eating hours that should have gone to young people. Automating the routine work is how he keeps the team pointed at youth-centred projects.
Jessica Qubrossi
Co-Founder, Director of Operations & Chairperson
Jessica has been with Pathway to Hope since its infancy. She runs operations: strategy, resources, compliance, teamwork, and the programs themselves from development through to delivery. Before this she worked in several roles across the Waterloo Region, supporting infants, youth and adults, each group facing something different.
Six years in mental health and addiction work taught her what does and does not work, and where there is still ground to cover. Her own mental health path, along with watching friends and family struggle, is what pulled her into the field. With safe consumption sites and live-in programs closing across Ontario, she sees the need for new programming as urgent. Outside work she has four kids, and she cooks, bakes, reads and watches movies with family and friends.
Faridoon Fawad
Treasurer
Faridoon left Pakistan for Canada looking for a brighter future and met cultural and emotional hurdles instead. Raising two young boys in an unfamiliar society, she became isolated and overwhelmed, and eventually faced depression and anxiety. Her own determination and a supportive community she found along the way brought back hope and stability. She talks about that openly now, to spare other people the same thing and to argue for mental health care everyone can reach.
Room for more
There is a seat here for you.
We are a young organization and the list above is going to get longer. If you want to volunteer, apply for a role, or bring your organization alongside ours, say so.