Mohamed

Mohamed was born and raised in Egypt where he completed a Bachelor of Commerce Degree at the University of Cairo. He arrived in Canada in July 2017 as a refugee claimant with his wife and six children. When Mohamed arrived he felt like he was newly born and cried when he first saw the Canadian flag. It was, for him, the happiest day of his life. Mohamed and his wife immediately entered ESL classes at the Folk Arts Centre. He felt that learning English was his “biggest challenge”, but because of his great teacher Elaine and his determination to be able to communicate with his community, he advanced quickly to level 7. This allowed him to enroll in Lifetime Learning Centre and obtain his Ontario Secondary School Diploma. Despite a busy life at school and at home, Mohamed found time to volunteer. He had to work very hard to achieve his goals. Along with the demands of a large family, he would spend his days, until 4:30pm, volunteering at our Centre, after which time he would juggle three jobs: Instacart, Skip the Dishes and Uber. In between calls and orders, he spent his time studying in his car. The force behind his determination is his desire for his family to thrive here in Canada. He has set his sights on becoming a financial advisor and Immigration Consultant in Canada and is taking steps to achieve these goals. With his excellent performance as a volunteer in the Welcome Centre, Mohamed was offered a part-time job with our Settlement Department as a Settlement Counsellor. He has proven himself extremely helpful in this role, especially in serving our numerous Arabic-speaking clients. From his volunteer experience he learned that volunteering is very important in Canada and that “the success of the individual means the success of society and the success of the community is a success for our beautiful country of Canada.”