When a group of Syrian refugee students began studying at Superior Heights Collegiate and Vocational School this past semester, Kiernan Green, a Grade 12 student, decided to sit down and speak with them.
He talked to them about their lives in Syria, their struggles adapting to life in Canada, their successes so far and their hopes for the future.
Kiernan shares his account of their story in the article below:
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“We like to call them newcomers; they’re not refugees,” Mary Delorenzi corrected me as we sat down in her office to discuss a relevant new addition to the Superior Heights student body.
Four Syrian students enrolled at Superior Heights in October as a response from Sault Ste. Marie to the global displacement issue brought about by the Syrian Civil War (2011 – Present).
The students join more than 30,000 other Syrians who have immigrated to Canada since November 4, 2015 — when Canada first opened its doors to those affected by the Syrian war — and the one in five Canadians born in a foreign country, as measured in September of 2016, according to Statistics Canada.
The newcomers to Superior Heights face a transition into high school that would be challenging for anyone, regardless of motherland. Despite the cultural and linguistic barriers, it has been a transition met by optimism, hope, and compassion by all of those involved.
“I think it (the transition of the students) has been good so far,” Delorenzi, a guidance counsellor at Superior Heights said. “It is definitely very new for all of us. Obviously, there are obstacles with their language barrier. But I think they’re bright kids, and they will do well.”
The students in question were Abdurrahman, 15, Mahmoud, 17, and two others who both wished to remain unnamed. The four students agreed to an interview to discuss their life stories.
Each had much that they were eager to share about their lives before coming to Canada, and how their transition into the Sault Ste. Marie student community has gone since their arrival in October.
“Canada’s air is very nice,” Abdurrahman said, as he took in an emotive breath of air to make his point.
“It’s fresh.”
The students continued to praise their new lives in Canada, their appreciation for natural beauty of the country, and the new interests they have unfamiliar freedom to seek out.
For students Abdurrahman and Mahmoud, this freedom comes in contrast to their comparatively restricted lives in the country of Turkey.
Both had moved there following the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, like 2 million other Syrians had done as of 2015. Abdurrahman described Turkey as beautiful, but not a good place to be a Syrian.
“It was no good, for me or Mahmoud,” he said.
Abdurrahman, arriving in Turkey from Syria at age 11, worked to support his family rather than attend school. He had done this at a bakery, making cakes and other sweets, sometimes only returning home at 2 or 3 a.m. after 15-hour work days.
Mahmoud shared a similar schedule to Abdurrahman, instead working in electrical. Both were part of the 40 per cent of displaced Syrian youth in Turkey who worked full time instead of attending school.
Another student in the interview confirmed that he was from the city Homs, Syria, which is referred to as the ‘Capital of the revolution’ for the Syrian civil conflict. The city was the primary site of the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011, where the first lives were claimed in the anti-government-protest-turned-full-civil-war on April 17 of that year.
Today, at least 1,700 people have been killed in Homs and their infrastructure has been decimated by war.
“Canada has given me health, school, life, and freedom,” said the student, in contrast to his life in Homs. “It has given me a future.”
While life has been much better for the students upon their arrival in Canada, their transition here has still been met with challenges. The students disclosed that currently, the greatest challenge for each of them is overcoming the language barrier.
As of 2011 in Sault Ste. Marie, 95.1 per cent of the population spoke either English or French at home, while three per cent spoke neither. The four new students fall into the three per cent minority of non-English/French speakers within the community. This is the greatest challenge currently faced by the Syrian students as school classes and socializing are done entirely in English.
This barrier has been only slightly mitigated by the use of computer tablets equipped with Google Translation Software. However, despite this limited English experience due to their only recent arrival in Canada, each Syrian student remains extremely appreciative of their new lives in Sault Ste. Marie as Superior Heights students.
Abdurrahman was quick to express his gratitude for his new life in Canada and the many opportunities he has enjoyed. He has excelled in his drama class, enjoyed taking his younger sibling trick or treating this past Halloween. He is free to continue his baking skills in the Superior Heights bistro course and has set a personal goal to speak English fluently within three months.
Abdurrahman said he dreams of playing soccer at a professional level following his high school graduation in 2020, while another student hopes that his freedom of education in Canada will allow him to become an engineer in the future.
All four Syrian students said they found it easy to make friends at Superior Heights thanks to the welcoming attitude of many students, and believe that everyone can learn valuable lessons from one another on culture, inclusivity, and tolerance, because of their new presence in the school.
Jan Marrelli, principal of Superior Heights, shared this hopeful opinion: “They have been a great addition to the school. I think we can learn a lot from them and their experiences in helping to support them.”
"They are eager to learn and they want to learn quickly, so that they are able to help in supporting their families in the future.”
Marrelli said she believes the transition of the students into the Superior Heights student body has been a great success so far.
This success can, in large part, be attributed to the combined welcoming efforts of the Superior Heights staff.
Delorenzi is just one member of staff who has taken special care in ensuring the successful transition of the Syrian students. She acts alongside others such as Ruth Pino, a social science teacher of Syrian/Lebanese decent, who knew some of the Arabic language and offered to help where she could with translation for the students.
Melissa Santa Maria, an English teacher, had engaged her ninth-grade English students earlier in the semester with an activity to hand write more than twenty English-to-Arabic translation labels as a class. The signs are currently posted outside key rooms around Superior Heights, such as the school office, gym, and library, for the reference of all new Arabic-speaking students.
The four Syrian students also took part in this activity, leading to an educational experience for both themselves and the English-speaking majority, as everyone involved learned to write in a new language other than their own.
This level of English immersion, within the transition of the new students, has shown great progress, as one of the Syrian students had the opportunity to welcome — in near perfect English — a new fifth Syrian youth to Superior Heights on November 28.
Marrelli said the academic focus for the new Syrian students at Superior Heights is to learn foundational English during their time here, while being integrated into other academic classes offered by the school. To facilitate this, Superior Heights now offers specific ESL (English as second language) classes, and has implemented an international club within the school to help connect new foreign students originating from across the globe.
“I think things will start changing here within our school community (as we become more global), and hopefully, in our city as well,” Mary Delorenzi said, voicing her hopes for Superior Heights, and the Sault Ste. Marie community in general, to continue its inclusion efforts for those effected by the Syrian war, and for other peoples all over the world. “I just hope that they have the life that they want. I hope they have a life where they are free to do what they choose to do.”
Students of Superior Heights, be sure to give a friendly “marhabaan” (“hello!”, in Arabic) when you see your Syrian classmates. The addition of these new students leads us farther away from cultural biases, and accommodates a truer global connection in an ever-shrinking world.
- Kiernan Green
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