What Shiva Wants

This is Shiva Jahanshah reporting.

In Grade 8, Shiva Jahanshah (CTSR ‘03) picked up her Mom and Dad’s camcorder and headed out to interview the friends of a boy who used to ride her school bus. Word on the street was he had killed himself in prison. She wanted to know his story; to document it and have it mean something. It was, somehow, important.

Jahanshah read the daily paper throughout high school, and those stories were important too. They informed her innate curiosity about people and their goings on. The knowledge was empowering, but reading wasn’t enough. What she really wanted was to tell the stories herself.

“I knew I wanted to go to SAIT to study journalism. There was never any question about that,” said Jahanshah.

"Can't was definitely not in our vocabulary."

A late application for admission gave her an unexpected year off after her Grade 12 graduation. She put the time to good use, volunteering with the breakfast show at a local television station.

“I was up at 5 am every weekday for a year, pulling cables or whatever they needed me to do,” said Jahanshah. “It was the bottom of the food chain but I was so happy because I was in and I was learning.”

It was new, yet strangely familiar, territory. Her family had immigrated to Canada from Iran when she was just eight years old. All of their worldly possessions had fit inside two gym bags, and they didn’t speak enough English to put together a full sentence among them. But their optimism for the future would not be contained.

“Can’t was definitely not in our vocabulary,” said Jahanshah, who credits her parents with teaching her to work hard and to reject the notion of limitation.

“I wanted to learn English so bad. I wanted to talk to the kids at school; to take part in the conversations.” Always tenacious, Jahanshah gets what Jahanshah wants. She was fluent within eight months.

Jumping in with both feet

It was the same steadfast determination to learn and grow that later got Jahanshah in and through SAIT’s intense two-year Journalism and Broadcasting program. And, after working two years as a freelance journalist for Shaw TV in Calgary, it got her a job on staff.

“I called the director at Shaw once a week, every week for a whole year,” said Jahanshah. “You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”

Today, Jahanshah relishes the opportunity to mentor student interns at Shaw TV. She remembers what it was like for her. All the nerves and excitement of working a press conference or a media scrum, jockeying for position alongside working journalists who tend to dominate and dismiss them as mere students.

“I try and bring them in,” said Jahanshah. “Because you know, they’re working too. They’re just not getting paid.”

And the one piece of advice she always shares with the students to encourage them in their dream? Do whatever you have to do. Jump in with both feet — and all your heart.

It’s advice Jahanshah strives to live by, both off and on the job. Her poignant exploration of social issues like homelessness in Calgary has earned her respect and award-winning stature within the industry. And her integrity and compassionate spirit has garnered her the trust and respect of the community at large.

Yet ultimately what motivates Jahanshah is not what she can get out of her job, but what she can do with it.

“I get to tell people’s stories for them,” said Jahanshah. “To speak on their behalf and try and help whoever’s watching to understand and relate on a personal level.”

Homeless in Calgary

Her award-winning documentary “Homeless in Calgary” is a perfect example of the influence such work can wield in the world. In the documentary, Jahanshah profiles a young man who is a drug addict living on the street with little hope and an uncertain future. When the man’s family saw the show on TV in Saskatchewan, they came to Calgary to help him out.

“Two years later, this guy calls me up to thank me. He had been clean for a year. He had a new woman in his life with kids he calls his own. He’s happy. He said I changed his life.”

The trophy for this work, from the Alberta Motion Picture Industries, sits proudly on her living room mantle. But for Jahanshah, the greatest honour of all, always, is having the opportunity to tell people’s stories.

“This isn’t about stuff. It’s always about the people and their stories. It’s about how their stories have affected them.” And the potential those stories have to affect others.

Everyone, good or bad, has a story to tell, and it should come as no surprise that Jahanshah has a few of her own. Like how she got far more out of SAIT than the knowledge and skills she needed to launch a successful career.

“I think I’m the luckiest student ever at SAIT. I got everything I need to be happy and successful, including the love of my life.” That would be her husband, Sarwat Sarhosh (AMT ‘04).

Love at SAIT

“My husband and I actually fell in love in the Heart Building,” said Jahanshah, clearly tickled by the happy coincidence. “He’s my best friend. He’s my biggest supporter. He’s just amazing and I love him more every day.”

The two recently celebrated five years of marriage and the birth of their second child, a son named Aidan.
Their three-and-a-half-year-old daughter Nadia is already conducting imaginary interviews with her mom in the living room. Perhaps, in time, we’ll be getting more of her story.