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You know the cliché about the immigrant with a PhD who drives a taxi or works as a cashier at a supermarket?
Experience taught Sawsan Abdul-Majid that when it came to landing a job that matched her education, a newcomer needs determination, opportunity and a network.
So when the University of Ottawa engineering professor was mulling over how she could help Syrian refugee women who were also engineers get a foot in the career door, she thought back to when she first arrived in 1999. Although she had a PhD in engineering, she signed up for a school board course aimed at helping immigrants crack the workplace. That led to a three-month internship, which led to acquiring certification as a professional engineer.
“I’m a big believer that if you meet the right people, right away, that’s what you need,” says Abdul-Majid, who grew up in Iraq and moved to Bulgaria for graduate work in electrical engineering, where she met her husband, a doctor. The couple lived in Libya and Jordan, and came to Canada as landed immigrants, living in Mississauga for four years before moving back to Iraq in 2004 to help in the reconstruction of the war-torn country.
They stayed for five years and returned to Canada. Abdul-Majid, who has expertise in photonics, found a job at the University of Ottawa as a research associate and part-time professor.
In June, Abdul-Majid launched a pilot project called Advancing New Canadian Women in Technology with the help of the university’s Career Development Centre and 11 volunteers, who taught courses in entrepreneurship, resumé writing and interview skills.
The program unfolded in three phases — intake, on-campus training and a work-related co-op placement. The campus portion of the program, which ran over the summer, attracted 24 initial participants, not all engineers, or women or Syrians.
A few of them told Abdul-Majid: “I don’t understand anything here.” Abdul-Majid’s response: “You will.”
When project participants Fedaa Khirallah, an agricultural engineer and her husband Remon Ghaffa, a surgeon, arrived from Syria via Lebanon to Ottawa with their three young sons at the end of 2014, they had no time to prepare for transitioning their careers to Canada.
Language has been the biggest hurdle to overcome, says Khirallah, who worked in agricultural pest management in Syria. She aspires to be a professional agrologist and has been taking courses through the University of Guelph.
“Sometimes you feel stressed, You have all the knowledge, but you have to improve your language. In science, you have to be proficient in high-level English.”
She had a volunteer job working in the gardens at the Central Experimental Farm, but had to give it up after she found paid work in sales.
“If I get an co-op placement, paid or unpaid, it would be great for my resumé,” she says. “I don’t mind. I just need a small chance to build up my experience.”
Ghaffa has passed one exam and had a placement as a medical observer at a hospital. He will have to take other exams before he could be considered for a medical residency in Canada. He aims to practice family medicine.
Barbara Robertson, a retired teacher, volunteered to teach a course she called “getting to know Ottawa,” which she delivered in four one-hour segments. The participants wanted to learn about Canadian history, the electoral system, and a lot about how things work in Canada, especially the school system.
“I didn’t sense pessimism. I sensed realism,” she says of their approaches to the job market. “It wouldn’t happen right away. They would have to be realistic. But this would be the best thing for their children. And that was the bottom line. They have so much to offer. I felt buoyed when I left.”
Only nine of the original 24 students remained by the end of the summer, including Khirallah and Ghaffa.
“Some withdrew because they needed to find jobs to survive,” says Abdul-Majid. One civil engineer quit to take a job as an attendant at a gas station.
There were other roadblocks — some dropped out for lack of daycare. Co-op placements have been hard to find. Some companies don’t accept unpaid co-op students.
Abdul-Majid worked with her network of friends and colleagues to find placements. One placement was through Najaa Ibrahim, the friend of a friend and the owner of a pharmacy. Ibrahim accepted Farzan Asbhi, who has a master’s degree in pharmacy, for a co-op term as a pharmacy technician.
International pharmacy graduates have to take a number of exams before they can work in Canada, says Ibrahim. It’s not so much the science that has to be learned, but the practical matters of the Canadian retail environment and subjects like insurance coverage and generic drugs.
“She’s so clever. She’s learned so fast. When you have experience in retail pharmacy, it helps a lot.”
Abdul-Majid plans to run another course later this fall, but she’s planning two major changes. The first is securing daycare. “It’s crucial,” she says.
The second is to prove that the program leads to job placements.
“Dozens of programs are doing things like this. What’s different here? The entrepreneurial track is very important, and so is the co-op placement. I would really like to have a co-op placement officer. We really need to be drawing the attention of employers,” she says.
“At the end of the story, the candidates will find a job. Some of them will be thinking about building companies. They will get an income. They will be able to add their impact to the community.”
jlaucius@ottawacitizen.com
查看原文...
Experience taught Sawsan Abdul-Majid that when it came to landing a job that matched her education, a newcomer needs determination, opportunity and a network.
So when the University of Ottawa engineering professor was mulling over how she could help Syrian refugee women who were also engineers get a foot in the career door, she thought back to when she first arrived in 1999. Although she had a PhD in engineering, she signed up for a school board course aimed at helping immigrants crack the workplace. That led to a three-month internship, which led to acquiring certification as a professional engineer.
“I’m a big believer that if you meet the right people, right away, that’s what you need,” says Abdul-Majid, who grew up in Iraq and moved to Bulgaria for graduate work in electrical engineering, where she met her husband, a doctor. The couple lived in Libya and Jordan, and came to Canada as landed immigrants, living in Mississauga for four years before moving back to Iraq in 2004 to help in the reconstruction of the war-torn country.
They stayed for five years and returned to Canada. Abdul-Majid, who has expertise in photonics, found a job at the University of Ottawa as a research associate and part-time professor.
In June, Abdul-Majid launched a pilot project called Advancing New Canadian Women in Technology with the help of the university’s Career Development Centre and 11 volunteers, who taught courses in entrepreneurship, resumé writing and interview skills.
The program unfolded in three phases — intake, on-campus training and a work-related co-op placement. The campus portion of the program, which ran over the summer, attracted 24 initial participants, not all engineers, or women or Syrians.
A few of them told Abdul-Majid: “I don’t understand anything here.” Abdul-Majid’s response: “You will.”
When project participants Fedaa Khirallah, an agricultural engineer and her husband Remon Ghaffa, a surgeon, arrived from Syria via Lebanon to Ottawa with their three young sons at the end of 2014, they had no time to prepare for transitioning their careers to Canada.
Language has been the biggest hurdle to overcome, says Khirallah, who worked in agricultural pest management in Syria. She aspires to be a professional agrologist and has been taking courses through the University of Guelph.
“Sometimes you feel stressed, You have all the knowledge, but you have to improve your language. In science, you have to be proficient in high-level English.”
She had a volunteer job working in the gardens at the Central Experimental Farm, but had to give it up after she found paid work in sales.
“If I get an co-op placement, paid or unpaid, it would be great for my resumé,” she says. “I don’t mind. I just need a small chance to build up my experience.”
Ghaffa has passed one exam and had a placement as a medical observer at a hospital. He will have to take other exams before he could be considered for a medical residency in Canada. He aims to practice family medicine.
Barbara Robertson, a retired teacher, volunteered to teach a course she called “getting to know Ottawa,” which she delivered in four one-hour segments. The participants wanted to learn about Canadian history, the electoral system, and a lot about how things work in Canada, especially the school system.
“I didn’t sense pessimism. I sensed realism,” she says of their approaches to the job market. “It wouldn’t happen right away. They would have to be realistic. But this would be the best thing for their children. And that was the bottom line. They have so much to offer. I felt buoyed when I left.”
Only nine of the original 24 students remained by the end of the summer, including Khirallah and Ghaffa.
“Some withdrew because they needed to find jobs to survive,” says Abdul-Majid. One civil engineer quit to take a job as an attendant at a gas station.
There were other roadblocks — some dropped out for lack of daycare. Co-op placements have been hard to find. Some companies don’t accept unpaid co-op students.
Abdul-Majid worked with her network of friends and colleagues to find placements. One placement was through Najaa Ibrahim, the friend of a friend and the owner of a pharmacy. Ibrahim accepted Farzan Asbhi, who has a master’s degree in pharmacy, for a co-op term as a pharmacy technician.
International pharmacy graduates have to take a number of exams before they can work in Canada, says Ibrahim. It’s not so much the science that has to be learned, but the practical matters of the Canadian retail environment and subjects like insurance coverage and generic drugs.
“She’s so clever. She’s learned so fast. When you have experience in retail pharmacy, it helps a lot.”
Abdul-Majid plans to run another course later this fall, but she’s planning two major changes. The first is securing daycare. “It’s crucial,” she says.
The second is to prove that the program leads to job placements.
“Dozens of programs are doing things like this. What’s different here? The entrepreneurial track is very important, and so is the co-op placement. I would really like to have a co-op placement officer. We really need to be drawing the attention of employers,” she says.
“At the end of the story, the candidates will find a job. Some of them will be thinking about building companies. They will get an income. They will be able to add their impact to the community.”
jlaucius@ottawacitizen.com
查看原文...
