UC Pakistani Student Association
The University of Canberra is proudly multicultural, with students from all over the world making our campus excitingly diverse. One of the roles of the clubs and societies at UC is to provide these and domestic students with that feeling of home. A prime and important example of this is the UC Pakistani Student Association (UCPSA), which we were lucky to interview in February.
The UCPSA was founded in October 2024 by President Muhammad Rahim Shami after noticing the lack of Pakistani student representation and community. He said that his purpose was to bring “the Pakistani culture to UC and, of course, have some fun.” Together with the executive team, including secretary Javeria Aamer, who was present at our interview, the society has hosted several events with the ultimate goal of, as Javeria explained, “building on the Pakistani community and ensuring we’re constantly represented.”
A noteworthy example of this is the Qawwali night hosted by the UCPSA in October of 2025. Muhammad shared that this was the first Qawwali event in Canberra, resulting in more than 80 attendees and 200+ people on the waitlist. This outstanding night celebrated the Pakistani community by expressing Pakistani culture: they served traditional Pakistani meals, they danced, and they connected.
The UCPSA also hosts events that highlight specific elements of Pakistani culture. For example, they prepared a ‘Dastan-E-Chai’ event which “brought Pakistani tea to UC to show our food culture,” Muhammad said. This ended up being a large multicultural event that provided friendships to people of all cultures.
Furthermore, the UCPSA were involved in the Moonlit Markets at UC in 2025, Qawwali events and has collaborated with Universities such as ANU and UNSW in the past.
This doesn’t mean that being a big society at UC doesn’t come with challenges. A sad but factual possibility is that their society dissolves in the future like many UC clubs have before. They said that a lot of their time is spent designing bigger and better events to ensure the society survives.
More members mean more likelihood of success for all societies, so, looking to the future, the UCPSA are hoping to collaborate with more universities and other clubs to increase membership and enjoyment.
Their future plans include partnerships with the Muslim, Bangladeshi and Indian societies, the UCSRC and an aim to be a hosting part of UC’s next Grand Iftar. They will expand on future connections, such as with Pakistani local businesses and hope to make their culture known by more students and Canberra as a whole.
UCPSA offers memberships to every person, whether they are Pakistani or not, and encourages people from all cultures to attend their events. Their membership costs $10/month for UC students (postgraduate and undergraduate) and $20/month for external members. They encourage people from all faculties to sign up, make friends from new countries and experience new events.
The UCPSA encourages you to reach out if you have any questions. They communicate in a WhatsApp group chat, though you can reach out via Instagram, around campus at events or via their email listed below.
We very much encourage you all to check out the UCPSA. We think they are an outstanding society with a lot to offer.
INSTAGRAM: @UC.PakistanStudentAssociation
EMAIL: pakistaniucassociation@yahoo.com