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| Maryam Monsef's story |
From Afghanistan To Iran To Peterborough: One Woman's Amazing Story Of How A City (& A School) Saved Her LifeThe most frequently asked question I encounter is, “Why did you come to Peterborough?” My story goes something like this. I was eleven years old. And I came here kicking and screaming. Despite the horrible circumstances in my first home in Afghanistan—and the uncertainty of refugee life in my second home in Iran—I thought I had it pretty good there. My mom was widowed at the age of twenty-three and instead of re-marrying, she decided to spend her life taking care of her three little girls. I never felt the void of a father because my sisters and I were raised in a full house: full of extended family, love and attention. I had the perfect childhood. I thought I had it all.
My mom & dad |
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| Kareema's story |
| Wednesday, 12 January 2011 16:40 |
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After a more than three year process, Kareema and her family left Pakistan in pursuit of educational opportunities for her husband. Kareema, her husband and their two year old daughter arrived in Mississauga, Ontario in February 2003. After spending three years in Mississauga where her husband was working with a pharmaceutical company, they moved to Kingston where he was admitted to a PhD program. After one year there, her husband switched to Trent University which brought the family to Peterborough in 2007. Kareema discusses some of the challenges of living in a small (by comparison) city and describes the limited opportunities in terms of employment. She says “... for one and a half years I have been looking for a job here … I have an education background, a Masters in Chemistry and a Bachelor of Education…but here I need to change my career and for that I have to learn more skills.” Kareema has been an active participant in community programs to increase and broaden her skill set. She says these programs have been very helpful because there are financial problems; “... it is expensive to upgrade skills and as my husband is a student and we have three children, it is hard to pay to go back to school because if we are both in school, we would not be able to pay rent and childcare.” She went through a credential evaluation and they told her what courses she would need to take to meet Canadian standards. This is the reality for Kareema, she feels that her skills are not applicable here and so volunteer work is necessary which has allowed her to “…know more about the community, the people and the work.” Additional challenges include the language “…because although we have English, living in Mississauga where the South Asian community did not speak English, I was nervous to speak it.” Kareema describes experiences where she felt different for like having to go to Toronto for Muslim celebrations and shopping for the food which they cannot access in Peterborough, such as Halal meat. Muslim religious holidays are not practiced in Peterborough and so on those days, her daughters still have to go to school as these are not national or Christian holidays. But Kareema draws a positive experience from this; her youngest daughter told her teacher at school about a holiday and her teacher sent home a note asking Kareema more about it. And so, she wrote up an article explaining their religious holiday and her daughter’s teacher shared it with the class. Despite her children being the only Muslim children in the class, Kareema says her family practices their Muslim holidays but also Christian ones for she says “…we are Canadian too.” Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Caitlin worked at the New Canadians Centre as the Summer Student in 2010. After she returned to her studies at Trent, she undertook a project through the Trent Centre for Community-Based Education titled "Oral Histories of Immigrants in Peterborough". This story is one of many that she compiled for her project. |
