Throughout 18 Schlegel Villages spread across Ontario, more than 6,000 team members from all corners of the globe care for and support our residents. Their stories are as vast, varied and unique as the individual residents they proudly serve, and in them we often find inspiration and the best in the spirit of generosity.
To dedicate one’s life to the care of others is that spirit in action.
Soe San Dar is but one example. It is almost exactly a month after Soe and her two sons arrived in Guelph after a journey that began years ago when Soe and her family fled persecution in Myanmar (formerly Burma) to build a new future together. She’s in the library at The Village of Riverside Glen, where she began working immediately after arriving. Over the years, she moved from Myanmar to Bangladesh, Singapore and India, never once sitting idle. Soe is a person of action, always eager to learn and grow, steadily moving towards the next best opportunity available.
Her depth of experience, honed since she struggled across the Naf River separating Myanmar and Bangladesh with a 2 and 4-year-old in tow, covers many facets; she worked in pharmaceutical sales at one point, for example, while at another, she supported the rehabilitation of young Bangladeshi prostitutes seeking a new path in life.
“I work with my heart,” she says, through her wide smile, “not for money.”
She reflects on time she spent trying to help the Rohingya people who had fled religious persecution and genocide in Myanmar, and in her gracious words, one senses a faith in the spirit of karma carrying Soe and her sons through to this point in their lives.
“To be honest, I’m not interested in religious affairs or skin colour,” she says. “Who needs our help, who needs our support?”
Those questions guide her.
When an opportunity crossed her path in early 2023 to come to Ontario through Talent Beyond Boundaries, which supports refugees coming to Canada to work with healthcare organizations like Schlegel Villages, Soe eagerly applied, along with more than 4,000 other refugees from many other regions.
That she was chosen, she says, feels as though a lifetime of giving to others has been reciprocated. It took more than a year and she worked hard to pay the necessary visa fees, but all was finalized at the last minute, and she arrived little more than a week before Canada Day. She immediately began working with both The Village of Arbour Trails and Riverside Glen, instantly feeling blessed to give of herself to the residents and team members of the Villages.
“It is a reflection in karma,” she says, noting that she quickly settled into a new two-bedroom apartment and local organizations, such at the YMCA and Thrive, helped arrange furniture and basic housing supplies, all through donation. “If you work by heart,” she says, “you can find help immediately.”
She loves where she’s landed at Schlegel Villages, “because I love to take care of the people,” she says, representing the success of the organization in attracting, selecting and welcoming culturally-aligned team members from all around the world. “They need three things: number one, love; number two, care; and number three, respect, and I can give all of them so they are happy.”
Soe’s smile is a constant comfort and her energy seems boundless; her good heart has found a comfortable home, indeed, and her family’s future looks bright.
