For nearly a decade, Marwa Amra had been trying to make her way to Canada where she always believed some of her best hopes for the future could be realized.
On a hot day in late August, Marwa sits outside Coleman Care Centre, where for the past two months she has settled into a new position in life, supported in her journey through an organization called Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB) and Schlegel Villages.
“Sometimes I wake up and I don’t believe I am in Canada,” she says, reflecting on her path in life as a Palestinian-Lebanese refugee who grew up in the United Arab Emirates and became a registered nurse there. “You want to have the best options in life,” she adds, explaining that her older sister had immigrated to British Columbia years ago and when they had last seen each other Marwa heard about all Canada had to offer.
“She was always talking about the system here (in Canada); the humanity and everything, so I was amazed with this,” Marwa says.
Marwa also recalls how during her training as a nurse, she would attend seminars where all the best international speakers were Canadian, while any of her professors as she upgraded her nursing training either hailed from the U.S., Australia or Canada; this is where she often pictured herself.
And now she is slowly settling into her new home in Barrie, thankful to be in a medium-sized city with lots of greenspace around her and a job where she can put her caregiving spirit into action.
“For me, it was like a miracle,” she says of the direction her life has taken in the past 18 months since she first heard about TBB and made her application. Over the course of eight years, she’d applied for visitor visas and expensive student visas and work visas, all to be denied, and she’d been taken advantage of by unscrupulous agencies claiming to be able to navigate the system, only to steal her money.
It was when she decided to glance away from the dream that she stumbled onto the TBB application through an acquaintance in Lebanon. She filled it out and practically forgot about it; seven months later they informed her that her application was moving forward with an opportunity to move to the U.S. or Canada.
After two interviews, she signed a contract to become part of the Schlegel Villages family, “and here I am,” she says. “The arrangement was beautiful; it was organized; it was very well managed.”
She said landing in Toronto to be welcomed by Coleman Care Centre leadership team members Jenn Carr and Tabatha Newman offered a sense of comfort. In those first moments, she felt she wasn’t alone but instead part of small family.
Marwa is filled with hope in her new home, she says, even as she’s still settling into her new surroundings in Barrie. She values being in a small city and she’s grateful for and appreciative of the support of the residents and team members at Coleman, and the wider Schlegel organization that helped make her dream come to life.
Her goal is to eventually upgrade her credentials so she can practice as a nurse here, but for now she’s simply taking one step at a time on an exciting new path in life.
