Refugee’s success an inspiration
United Way-funded agency a vital resource for new immigrants
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/12/2016 (2673 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Rasha Kossad arrived from Libya as a refugee fleeing war two years ago.
With help from the Immigrant Centre Manitoba Inc., she found herself on a fast track to success, learning English and training for jobs, all on the way to her goal to complete training she started in Libya as a medical technologist. Her true passion is to study genetics, a field not available to her back in the Middle East.
In the past two years, she’s earned a food-handling certificate, worked at Tim Hortons, gone on to get a college certificate as a medical office assistant and landed a job in a sport-injury clinic.
She’s now looking at adding a part-time job at another clinic.
Kossad is 22, and the jobs she’s had are stepping stones to a future she’s mapped out.
“I still have a weakness in my writing and reading (in English), a little bit. That’s why I took the medical assistant course at Robertson College, to learn,” Kossad said in a phone interview. “I’m so, like, thinking of taking up studies as a medical technologist, but not right now. After a year or two or three years.”
Without English, Kossad could not get a job when she arrived with her parents and older brother, Loay Kossad, a telecom engineer who’s also studying English and planning a local cable TV business that offers Arabic-language channels.
Kossad’s story is a dream she shares with just about every immigrant to Canada.
What she doesn’t volunteer, until asked, is the 12-hour days she put in to learn English, train for jobs and work shifts at Tims.
Amie Membreño at the Immigrant Centre on Adelaide Street said Kossad’s determination is reason for inspiration. The centre was Kossad’s first stop as a refugee applying for help, and she flew through the centre’s language and job-training courses at twice the average pace, marking milestones in just two years that normally take four or five.
“Whenever you’re working in a non-profit situation, you have to put in a lot of hours and put in a lot of hard work. Sometimes things turn out, and sometimes they don’t,” said Membreño, the manager of the centre’s employment services.
“But we really try to make a personal connection with our clients, and when we hear a story like Rasha’s, it just makes it all worth it, all the hard work. It inspires us to work more and give it our all for each client we do have,” Membreño said.
“Hearing success stories is what keeps us going,” she said.
The centre celebrated its 70th year of service to immigrants this year.
About 800 to 1,000 clients take English-language and job-training skills each year, and that includes help for permanent residents, immigrants with citizen status and refugees with work permits.
The centre is a non-profit organization with various funders including the federal and provincial governments and the United Way. It helped more than 15,000 clients last year, a one-stop-shop for settlement services. Reception fields a new call every four minutes.
This year, the centre is offering a service prospective immigrants can access prior to their arrival.
The pre-arrival program works with immigrants who have been approved as permanent residents while they are still in their home countries. Facilitators provide information to immigrants through Skype, phone, email and webinars about what they can expect when they arrive in Canada and how to best prepare for success.
alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca