Media Feature: The Not-So-Crazy Canuk Podcast Ep 13

Wafaa El-Osta of Local2Global on what new immigrants are doing to become self sufficient

 

00:00:07:13 – 00:00:41:05
Tom
Hi. Welcome to the Knoxville Crazy Canuck. Our goal is to uncover factual, relevant, unbiased information which might help you become a smarter, savvier investor. I’m hoping that this podcast will send you away with at least one valuable kernel of knowledge, which might help you make a better decision with your investments or in your life. I’m Tom Desmet, a retired investment professional and founder of Local Wealth Professional SI.com, an investment literacy program dedicated to helping you learn what you need to know so you can recognize investments that make sense and also learn what a good advisor should do for you.

00:00:41:08 – 00:01:16:09
Tom
If you liked what you heard here, visit local Health professionals.com for more articles, videos, and even a full blown investment course. Have fun getting educated. Our guest today is Wafa Al Oster, who is the founder of Local to Global Solutions, providing solutions to governments, NGOs, not for profits and other businesses to generate long term economic growth. Wafa herself comes from Lebanon, speaks Arabic and French as well as English, which makes her the ideal partner to help businesses of new Canadians to get a toehold in the marketplace and succeed.

00:01:16:11 – 00:01:41:06
Tom
She collaborates with settlement programs to help McKinney’s and future entrepreneurs think smart, create lean businesses, and also helps prepare presentations and business plans to pitch to banks and other partners. Today, Wafa is going to share with you, our listeners, some success stories of how, with a little help, motivated new immigrants have flourished in Canada and are contributing to our society.

00:01:41:09 – 00:01:47:01
Tom
Well, I’m really pleased to have you come and talk to us about this today. Welcome.

00:01:47:04 – 00:02:21:22
Wafaa
Thank you for having me over, Tom. This is, a great opportunity to share my experiences. I am very passionate about what I do, and, we’ve been doing this for a couple of years now. I was, I started this when I. Oh, my, admiration for the Canadian initiative to host Syrian refugees. So I’m happy to be here and traveling with you.

00:02:21:24 – 00:02:48:01
Tom
So have you got some examples of of of how this happens? You know, for many Canadians, they don’t really understand this whole process. They know that that people are coming from different parts of the world. In many cases, they’re immigrants themselves. You’re an immigrant, and I’m an immigrant. For example. The whole fiber of of Canadian culture is based on immigration.

00:02:48:04 – 00:03:05:13
Tom
And one of the nice things about Canada, as we we embrace peoples separate cultures and encourage them to embrace the Canadian culture as a whole. And, and obviously, what you’re doing is trying to enhance that in today’s world. Isn’t that right?

00:03:05:15 – 00:03:27:18
Wafaa
Absolutely. So, I am very, I worked a lot, a lot of a big period of my life was working with small and medium enterprises, especially in, remote, remote regions because I work in sustainable tourism development.

00:03:27:20 – 00:03:32:23
Tom
But, do you mean remote regions in Canada or remote regions in other parts of the world?

00:03:32:26 – 00:04:01:15
Wafaa
It was in other parts of the world, for sure. Okay. But when I came to Canada in 2011, I came with two boys, 14 and 16, and I wanted to continue my work. I find it very hard. I, I, I was from the people who would come from hero to 0. I was meeting with ministers.

00:04:01:18 – 00:04:29:25
Wafaa
Director general, managing a budget of $6 million. And then I decided to come here. And when I came here, it was like, a shock to me. I had to work at a store folding t-shirts with Toronto and Canada on it. This was my closest connection with my sector. That was before the tourism sector, right?

00:04:29:28 – 00:04:31:06
Tom
Wow.

00:04:31:08 – 00:04:31:16
Wafaa
Right.

00:04:31:23 – 00:04:33:20
Tom
So a big change.

00:04:33:23 – 00:04:54:20
Wafaa
Totally big change. Like my son came to the shop and said, no, you’re not doing this. I don’t want you to be doing this, but it will come. Trust me. I just need to concentrate on undoing my private life, my family life, before I really concentrate on my work and being on the spotlight myself.

00:04:54:22 – 00:04:59:23
Tom
So the bottom line is, you had to figure it out for yourself before you could teach anybody else how to do it.

00:04:59:25 – 00:05:23:29
Wafaa
Absolutely. Absolutely. I had to navigate the system and, through a lot of challenges and difficulties. And, then I decided to do my master’s degree. So, to navigate the system on my own while I’m raising my own family of two adolescent boys on my own.

00:05:24:02 – 00:05:27:23
Tom
So you came here with your children? On your own?

00:05:27:26 – 00:05:42:22
Wafaa
On my own. I had the support of my husband back home. Who was sending the money? Because he had a stable job. And this is, one of many cases, example of many cases like this, in fact.

00:05:42:24 – 00:05:49:21
Tom
Well, that sounds like a case of considerable sacrifice, too, because that means your husband stayed in. Was it Lebanon?

00:05:49:23 – 00:05:50:22
Wafaa
Yes. Yes.

00:05:50:23 – 00:05:53:18
Tom
And and he’s. And he’s still there.

00:05:53:21 – 00:05:54:08
Wafaa

00:05:54:11 – 00:06:06:04
Tom
And and you came here with your, with your family presumably because Canada was a safer place and you felt that you could you could, you could bring your family up, you know, in a better environment I guess.

00:06:06:05 – 00:06:23:29
Wafaa
Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. So that was a choice. A difficult choice, but a choice that I respected and, persistently, worked towards. It’s to work towards making it a success. Right?

00:06:24:02 – 00:06:25:19
Tom
That’s a big sacrifice.

00:06:25:21 – 00:06:59:04
Wafaa
It is, it is, it is. I would call it a choice. I wouldn’t give it to my kids as sacrifice. Yes. That’s it. Because I don’t want this burden on their shoulder anyways, and I, I did. Well, I find out that I did well and, I, I want to give this, the notes that I took for myself, the notes that I took to share with you for my with my husband to come back, to come here and make his own enterprise and start our new life together.

00:06:59:06 – 00:07:42:12
Wafaa
This was a reference for myself. I made myself a resourceful person in this. And then when the, the Trudeau government and Justin Trudeau announced that they were gonna bring the, Syrian refugees when the door of Canada open for the Syrian, I was in all. And I was so humbled by the, sponsorship formula, like private private sponsors, bringing their the about a family of four or 2 or 3, whatever it is.

00:07:42:15 – 00:08:17:05
Wafaa
But this was a lot to me to, to, to take in while people in Lebanon who’s just an adjacent country to Syria, we’re having difficulty hosting the Syrians because they, they’re coming in uncontrollable ways. In fact. But that put aside, I had the most amazing experience, giving, developing this program with local settlement agencies.

00:08:17:08 – 00:08:44:24
Wafaa
While I also worked as a volunteer with a couple of families, with sponsors from Canadian sponsors, from my professors at the university at the time. Two words helping them settle and really, really looking closely to their to their own problems to like I talked about my own experience of this is one thing and their experience is different.

00:08:44:25 – 00:09:25:21
Wafaa
Each one’s experience is different. But everybody who comes as a new person, they say the first, the to the new Canadians, the most important thing is to settle and to settle. And the most important problem to be productive, to become, to have a job or to become productive. Now for the Syrian refugees themselves, I, this is the first time the Canadian government gives a program, at least to my knowledge.

00:09:25:23 – 00:09:54:13
Wafaa
The Canadian government sponsored a program for the Syrian refugees in their own language, in Arabic. It happened before in Vietnamese, for the, refugees or for the boat people? Yes. So this time I had to develop the program in the Arabic language, presented in English and Arabic, in the class. Every, every piece of information was translated in English and Arabic.

00:09:54:15 – 00:09:57:29
Wafaa
So they can make the bridging to.

00:09:58:01 – 00:10:17:04
Tom
Isn’t that a great idea? In other words, it’s almost a it’s a, it’s an integration class, but it’s also, language class at the same time because you, you, you tell people what they need to hear in their own language, and then they hear the same thing in English, so they’ll recognize it eventually. When people other people say it.

00:10:17:07 – 00:10:23:22
Wafaa
Absolutely. And this is the way they they need to speak this language, the language of their interest.

00:10:23:24 – 00:10:25:03
Tom
So absolutely. Yeah.

00:10:25:07 – 00:10:41:04
Wafaa
I mean, to the class, I would create a platform altogether, that would help them establish themselves, start their own routes at home, come and start to feel home, in fact. Yeah.

00:10:41:07 – 00:11:06:21
Tom
So have you got an example that you can use as, almost a case study to describe to our listeners how how this has worked out? I know that in separate conversations, we’ve talked about some very interesting cases where it’s kind of inspiring and you can and other people might be able to relate to it, where maybe they’ve had a similar case in their own situation to.

00:11:06:24 – 00:11:34:03
Wafaa
Yes, absolutely. So one of the cases that I, I really, admired, in fact, and was astonished to, to, to have a team created in the room is the story of two women who don’t speak the same language, but, they speak a little bit of English, broken English, each one their own way. But they connected together.

00:11:34:06 – 00:12:18:27
Wafaa
They had similar projects, and they could sit together, share notes, and they were talking as they were. They just became one entity after few sessions together, although it wasn’t like, a partnership or an official entity, but just for the sake of developing their business, sharing their notes, sharing those vulnerabilities, their success, little small successes together. So they, they worked together and, they were making fun of each other in a, in a positive way and joking about their new discoveries of the language, their new, folks in the language.

00:12:18:27 – 00:13:05:01
Wafaa
Right? Speaking to to other people and not understanding them or something. So it was a it was a very nice, connection that was created that, it gave them support for each other. The two were women, older women, grandmothers who came in support of their families. And once their families are starting to settle, they wanted to do their own business working with their sons and daughters and grand daughters and sons also towards like making a website, taking pictures of the food they’re making and, just celebrating their achievements and life and their family achievements in life.

00:13:05:04 – 00:13:18:23
Wafaa
In the, in Canada, as a new country, as a country where they’re going to flourish and they are seeing their, their children and grandchildren living happily and contributing.

00:13:18:25 – 00:13:40:23
Tom
Well, that’s, that’s, that’s a a kind of uplifting story. It’s also so these were two people who came from different countries, did not speak the same language, one on the other, and their only common language bond was English. So they had to they had to communicate with each other in English because neither one of them spoke the other’s language.

00:13:40:25 – 00:13:58:15
Tom
Yes, that’s that’s what Canada is all about. That’s what what you know, it always has been. You know, people have come from all over the world, and immigrated here. And the common thread was the local language, either French and Quebec or English and most of the rest of Canada.

00:13:58:18 – 00:14:33:26
Wafaa
Absolutely, absolutely. So you you could see there is a what we do is we create this space, a safe space and the fertile environment for those, connections to grow, the connections between the people and the land and the connection between the people and the local programs. The, the connection between the people themselves. They share notes. They understand it’s a that there’s difficulty, they understand it’s hard, but they also connect to each other and help each other.

00:14:33:28 – 00:14:57:05
Wafaa
Just, in, in their, in their journey of settlement in this roller coaster, when somebody is down the other group would be helping them to get up, working on, on, on uplifting them, helping them reach the top of their journey.

00:14:57:07 – 00:15:18:00
Tom
How how do these people find your program, or do you find them? Is this presumably the people that participate in your program? Or are people who are motivated? In other words, they want to do something, and unfortunately, everybody isn’t made that way. But the the people you work with are the willing. So in other words, you work with the willing.

00:15:18:03 – 00:15:50:29
Wafaa
Yes. Yes, absolutely. I work with the willing. I work with people who are motivated. Sometimes they are. They arrive to my training after a big journey and after many disappointments, and sometimes they just landed. I had I had, a trainee who became a friend who had just landed in Canada for 26, 20 days, and she was totally fresh and ready to, to move and, to do things.

00:15:51:02 – 00:16:28:18
Wafaa
So, those people come in with dreams. The dream is their drive. But then they are faced with the reality of things. Yeah. It’s just that they need to make with their, and the fact that these aftershocks, sometimes, if they arrive a little bit late or if they go to a place I did that. I went out of assembly space and going to one place, and I found out that I didn’t I did the wrong subway station or I can’t, I can’t find this even with GPS in downtown with the towers.

00:16:28:18 – 00:16:36:28
Wafaa
You they tell you you’re here and you’re not here. And. So, there’s nothing here.

00:16:37:00 – 00:16:38:10
Tom
Yeah. Oops.

00:16:38:12 – 00:17:11:15
Wafaa
It happens. Or it’s just crossing the street, but just crossing the street is like a couple of of, of streetlights. And that’s seven, seven minutes away from where you want to reach, where you need those things. That’s all the the the emotional, plus all the emotional, distraction and the emotional, shock that you get when you’re changing your heart.

00:17:11:17 – 00:17:34:28
Wafaa
Even if it was a choice. Well, being a refugee, sometimes when you have a choice. And somebody told me that from the school of my kids, when you have a choice is more difficult because you can always come back. You can always you always have the choice of going back. But when you bring the ship behind you, it doesn’t have to settle.

00:17:35:01 – 00:17:40:15
Tom
Right? It’s right. Yes. Well, it does simplify things, doesn’t it?

00:17:40:17 – 00:17:44:12
Wafaa
Yeah, yeah. You just have to look in one direction. There’s no.

00:17:44:13 – 00:17:49:18
Tom
Yeah, there is no behind you. That’s a cliff behind you.

00:17:49:25 – 00:17:52:14
Wafaa
Yes.

00:17:52:17 – 00:18:10:21
Tom
Well that’s been an interesting conversation. I, I really enjoyed it. And I hope our listeners did too. Do you want to, maybe give us, your website if somebody is listening to this so that if they’d like to connect with you, they could.

00:18:10:24 – 00:18:27:07
Wafaa
Absolutely. So my website is local two global Solutions dot net and that is local number two Global Solutions dot net.

00:18:27:10 – 00:18:50:27
Tom
Well I hope if somebody is listening to this and they know, of somebody who’s new to the country and is struggling and trying to find their way, that perhaps they’ll find you and, can perhaps join your group and, and, and, and find their way to so to our listeners, I say thanks for listening to the not so crazy Canuck, and we hope you enjoyed it.

00:18:50:29 – 00:19:19:08
Tom
Check out next week for another episode because we’re always talking to interesting people and interesting subjects, and maybe you’ll pick up another valuable kernel of knowledge that you can use, in your own life. If you want to know more, go to local Health professionals.com, where you’ll find a full investment course called the CIC. And our growing library of articles and videos, and of course the archive of these podcasts.

00:19:19:11 – 00:19:20:27
Tom
Thanks and bye.