top of page
Meet the Team
Jahanara Rajwani
Anika Atique
Ruchi Sharan
Communications Coordinator
Program Director
Program Director
Ruchi Sharan is a fourth year Anatomy and Cell Biology major at McGill University. Ruchi and her co-founder created Roots with the aim to empower youth to eliminate the stigma associated with mental illness through open discussion and communication. She believes that Roots integrates her passion for psychology and public health with her aspiration to make a change in people’s lives. Ruchi hopes to one day pursue a career in psychiatry.
Jahanara Rajwani is currently a fourth year student at McGill University, studying Honours Immunology. Through her lived experiences with mental health, Jahanara not only became aware of the number of people struggling with mental health issues, but also how useful openly talking about mental health could be for recovery. For this reason, she and her co-founder created Roots as a student run initiative aiming to eliminate the stigma and build a foundation where discussing mental health openly is the norm.
Anika Atique is a 4th year Anatomy and Cell Biology major at McGill University. When she first moved to Montreal to start her undergraduate education she felt the need to be useful, not just through her education, but also to give back to her community. She has always had a passion for social justice, health care and education and joined Roots because it combined all these passions into one common goal.
Amyna Kanji
Helen Maunsell
Madeleine Mak
Content Coordinator
Speaker Series Coordinator
Workshop Facilitator
Amyna Kanji is currently a second year Masters student in the MA PhD Clinical Psychology program at Concordia University. She completed her Undergraduate degree in Psychology, and Social Studies of Medicine at McGill University in 2014. Throughout her life, Amyna has always had a strong passion for travelling, making connections and giving back to the global community. She is excited to embark upon the Roots journey with an extremely talented, passionate and humble group of individuals.
Helen Maunsell studies Biology at McGill University, with aspirations of becoming a pediatrician. Her interest in Roots derives from her experiences over the last three years, illustrating that mental health is an essential part of maintaining one's well-being. Through YMHA, she hopes to increase awareness of issues regarding mental health research and treatment, as well as learn the different ways in which younger individuals approach and cope with mental health disorders.
Madeleine Mak is a second year student studying Cognitive Science at McGill University. Pairing her experiences living throughout Asia with her close relationships with family members diagnosed with mental illness, she has accumulated interests in global health, mental wellness and humanitarianism. She hopes to both learn and share her insights with Roots to reshape cultural paradigms and approaches to mental illness from one that invokes stigmatization to one that proliferates acceptance and empathy.
Chan Phuong Nguyen
External Coordinator
Chan Phuong Nguyen studied Marketing at Concordia University and wanted to get involved with an organization focusing on mental health. YMHA is the perfect outlet for that, where she gets to combine her two interests: marketing and mental health.
bottom of page