Wadi Muhammad, a business student in his senior year at UMass Boston, has a vision for a better community. As the primary leader of the UMass Fairmount-Indigo Line Student Initiative, Wadi is working to build awareness within the UMass Boston campus community about a larger federal project to fund five new station stops along the Fairmount-Indigo Line.

This initiative will serve to educate students about “green” sustainable growth and job opportunities while also providing them with valuable experience in community organizing. Wadi feels that it is important to “look at green jobs and green enterprise as a win-win, for [himself], for society, for the environment.” As a current resident along this line, he realizes that community support is needed for the project to move forward. “Community involvement is essential to any major development happening; and if the community is not involved, it’s not going to be a success,” stated Wadi.

Since this transit line runs right in the backyard of the campus – and in the front yard of many of the university’s students – it directly affects the campus community. He hopes to promote the neighborhood and community aspects of the project rather than just the industrial changes that will occur. To achieve his goal, Wadi is working to promote the initiative through various workshops and service learning projects on campus in the coming months.

Wadi is also trying to create an internship program for students interested in this initiative and in community development, to be able to broaden their level of experience in the field. When asked about getting people more involved in the project, he expressed his hope that UMass Boston students will rise to the occasion to move this inititive forward. “More than anything, this is a student-led initiative and I think that anything in life is your own initiative; you take charge of what you want to see happen, so the hope is that we can really create agents of change here at UMass Boston,” he stated. In the future, Wadi hopes to continue with community development projects. His experience with this student initiative will hopefully help him do so.

A tour of the Fairmount line will be held on November 6th to allow students to gain a broader understanding of the type of development that has already occurred in the area as a result of the initiative, as well as the overwhelming amount of work still needed.

For more questions and concerns about this initiative and how you can become more involved, feel free to email Wadi at [email protected].