Ali Shah

Employee Profile, Yardi Romania

By Yardi Blog Staff on Jul 27, 2015 in People

“I am a simple and ordinary person, who values the values of life,” says data entry specialist Syed Zulfiqar Ali Shah. Born in Pakistan, Ali moved to Cluj-Napoca in 2008 after falling in love and marrying a Romanian woman.

He joined the Yardi Romania family in 2011 as a neighborhood researcher, but switched along the way. Nowadays he divides his time between Yardi, his family and a myriad of community outreach and volunteer activities that range from migrant outreach programs to donation drives for sick children.

As part of his daily activities at Yardi, Ali deals with product data maintenance, manages databases for online commerce, platforms and print catalogs. His favorite part about working for Yardi? A professional, but friendly atmosphere, a mindset that seems to be the motto of Yardi employees worldwide.

“We come from home in a good mood and return in the same mood,” Ali says, a smile on his face. That of course, has to do with his zen approach to life. Ali is known among his colleagues as someone who always has a piece of good advice or a ready joke at hand. Usually both.

“To be honest, it wouldn’t be possible for me to continue all the human rights related activities and volunteering at my current level without Yardi. The friendly and relaxed working atmosphere allows me to contribute to migrant communities in Cluj-Napoca. It’s all based on humanity,’ he adds.  “Yardi’s culture is a culture of humanity that appreciates and promotes volunteering and social outreach activities.”

A graduate of literature and arts studies, his education and the basis of creativity helps him in his day to day activities at work. When he leaves the office however, Ali seems to grow to larger than life proportions, working tirelessly to help those less fortunate in life. “The road to success is always under construction,” he says when prompted to detail his achievements in human rights activities.

“I feel no desire to be recognized, but I passionately want to do something good for children, for the advancement of their education and health and for migrants,” Ali says of his more high-profile achievements. Recently the Beard Brothers, a local NGO whose Honorary Cultural Ambassador Ali serves as, successfully wrapped up an $9,000 fundraising campaign to buy a minibus earmarked for transporting special needs children to school.

Now Ali is focused on a fundraising campaign to help six-year-old Alex, born with Lennox Syndrome, a condition for which treatment isn’t available in Romania. The treatment has to be flown in from Hungary based on online doctor’s consults with a specialist based in Vienna, Austria. But the mounting costs of medication paired with the necessity of soon having to physically visit the Austrian specialist are casting doubt on whether six-year-old Alex will be able to continue his treatment. And this to Ali is unacceptable.

“We have to do something to raise the funds to help this lovely, innocent soul. The treatment is working, he finally managed to speak for the first time in his life…He said ‘mama’.”

While working to provide life-saving treatments and tools to children might take over other people’s lives, Ali still finds time and energy, and a lot of it, to work on migrant outreach programs. “As a migrant, sometimes you have to struggle even to survive. After I came to Romania I faced some difficulties, so I decided to help others from going through the same things.”

So now, Ali is a social mediator for migrants in Romania and a peer advisor for the International Organization for Migration (IOM-Romania). He helps with issues starting at health, education, documentation, law and charity work.

“We work against racism and discrimination to make it a better place for all. This in turn helps migrants in Romania better integrate into local society.” Ali is also a facilitator for the “Com’on Cluj-Napoca” project that created a participatory budget for local initiatives, many of which are youth-oriented.

Last year Ali also participated in an “OPEN ACCESS” training at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium to increasing multicultural youth participation in political and civic life at local, national and European Union level, as well as how to strengthen municipalities to work towards a more profound involvement with migrant youth in Romania, Finland, Spain, France and Czech Republic. And Ali is far from done with community programs.

“My biggest achievement? The will and desire to continue with such activities in the future.”

More about Ali:

1. What do you do when you’re not saving the world?

Spending time with my family. I like visiting places like Bels and Sinaia to go picnicking, where you can see nature at its best. One day I’d like to go to Zermatt, Switzerland, home of the Matterhorn.

2. Person you really admire?

My son, who taught me right from the first look that years before I was also loved by my parents in the same way as me and my wife love him.

3. What’s your life motto?

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do” by Rumi

4. What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten?

If someone is not your brother in faith, he is your brother in humanity.

5. Favorite TV show?

Whatever my 5-year-old son likes to watch. And I have to tell him “It’s my favorite too”. I also enjoy current affairs talk-shows to keep up with matters.

6. What do you miss most about Pakistan?

My family, spicy food and the corrupt politicians of Pakistan.

7. Favorite food?

Fish Masala. It’s spicy.

8. Favorite food you can cook?

Eggs

9. What are you reading right now?

Nonviolent communication (A Language of life) by Marshall B. Rosenberg.

10. What music do you enjoy?

It depends on my mood, but mostly I like to listen to rabab music. Rabab is a traditional musical instrument also known as the “lion instrument”.

11. What languages do you speak?

I speak Urdu / Hindi, Punjabi, Hindko and English. I think I would like to learn Romanian as well after having lived seven years in here. Learn it properly.

12. Cage diving with sharks or skydiving?

Skydiving into a water cage with sharks!