When I arrived in Ottawa in 2016 I had no connection to what it meant to be an immigrant. I had never visited Canada before, had no immediate family here and as far as I was concerned, was an international student here to complete my undergraduate degree. I knew other international students, but none of us considered ourselves immigrants.

After I graduated, I got a contract position in the government, and ended up staying in Canada. It was when I started the daunting task of moving from a study permit to a work permit and from a work permit to applying for permanent residency that the word immigrant began to matter to me. I realized that immigrant wasn’t just a word, but an actual status that defined what you could and couldn’t do in this country.

If you ask Canadians today, I’m sure there might be a lot of ideas associated with the word immigrant. The pandemic and the increased immigration levels lead to changing rhetoric about immigrants. The word started to feel loaded and didn’t resonate with what I knew of people like myself and others in my community who were also immigrants. It was this change in the public conversation that made me want to find a way to pay it forward and to give back to all the community services in Ottawa that have helped me in my immigration journey. The IWSO Board seemed like the perfect opportunity to contribute and connect to many immigrant women who have stories that are worthy of hearing. I find it so grounding and rewarding to be a part of something where people truly care for those on the receiving end of their services. It is such a valuable experience to see the real impact that IWSO has on people’s lives.

If you ask me today, the word “immigrant” means so much more to me than it did almost a decade ago. It means to be brave and to be strong; to have a tenacity and a perseverance that many could not imagine. It means being open minded and curious. It takes a lot to uproot your life and plant new roots in a new country and learn the culture and norms of a new place. It means believing in the goodness and kindness of humanity. There are so many strangers that I have approached with an open heart who have become family to me now. I recognize that my story has a certain privilege, and that is why I feel it is my duty to do what I can to make sure that services are available to those that need it. There are many paths that lead people to Canada, and some of those paths are fraught with pain. My hope is that we can reduce the barriers that prevent people from getting the opportunity to flourish in the lives they deserve.

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