The Bow Valley welcomed 29 new international students in a ceremony that recognized the challenges of coming to study in Canada for the first time on Friday (Aug. 25).
Bow Valley Settlement Services held its annual newcomer orientation welcome graduation for the children of temporary foreign workers who have become permanent residents of Canada at Banff Community High School.
“The program is really about making the connection in the school, making the connection in their community and then across the community as well,” said Jeanie Godfrey, supervisor of Settlement Services in the Bow Valley.
The program, which has been running for six years, is designed to give new students an idea of what education is like in Canada, help build friendships, and how to be confident and successful in school.
The students are matched with peer leaders who are former graduates from the newcomer orientation program.
“For us that is the success of the program; when we see kids out going to a movie together or playing basketball together who met in the peer leader program,” she said.
The students are drawn from both Banff and Canmore and will attend middle and high schools across the Bow Valley.
This year had the largest number of student participants, maxing out the 29 spots available.
The number of peer leaders available limits the size of the program, as newcomers are matched with a peer in the same grade and school.
Some of the fears expressed by the students, and addressed by the peer leaders during one-on-ones, included not being able to find friends because of language barriers, not being helped to adjust by Canadian students and not fitting in because of cultural differences.
“We normalize the experience of being a newcomer,” said Godfrey. “The peer leaders are able to say ‘you know I had the same fears and feelings when I first came and this is what I did.’ ”
Banff’s Mayor Karen Sorensen and Canmore’s Mayor John Borrowman were both on hand with certificates and Kleenex for the emotional ceremony.
“For me, it’s really confirming for me both as a Canadian and an Albertan … to see these young kids that have spent so many years apart from their families coming here and having such enthusiastic, unbridled happiness,” said Borrowman.
Sorensen echoed Borrowman’s statement, adding she was proud to “watch the courage of these young kids to come into a strange country and strange school.”
She added it was grounding for her to attend the ceremony.
“We are very blessed to live in this country, to live in this province and to live in this town.”
Many of the students have waited years to be reunited with their families.
The average wait was seven years, but a trio of youngsters from the Philippines have waited 17 years to re-join as a family.
“I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be separated from your families, particular from your parents, for up to 17 years,” said Borrowman.
The temporary foreign worker program does not allow workers to have families stay with them in Canada.
Most of the students have come from countries that are currently undergoing severe civil strife and where violence is prevalent.
The Philippines, which has been undergoing a brutal period of violence and murder over drugs and religious tension, is the country of origin for most of the new students.
“It reminds me that our problems in the Bow Valley, and I say this in Canmore, are such first world problems,” he said. “To just have a glimmer of an idea of where these kids have come from and see how enthusiastic they are to be here in our country with everything we have to offer, it just underlines the contrast between what other people in the rest of the world live with on a daily basis,” said Borrowman.
The thought of what the students faced and how much they wanted to succeed brought tears to both mayors.
“This one boy just came up to me and I said ‘its going to be OK’ and he said ‘I hope so,’ ” said Sorensen.
