My name is Saad Abdul-Salam. I arrived in Canada with my mother Faten and younger brother. We are originally from Iraq but we arrived in Mississauga from Jordan in August 2009.
When we arrived in Canada our work and education were interrupted and we couldn’t continue what we were doing there. To get back into our fields we had to improve our English. What English I knew was not enough to get me a place at University and my mother can’t get a job until she speaks excellent English and upgrades her qualifications.  My mother has a Masters degree in accounting from Jordan and she hopes to get an equivalent certificate here in Canada and work in finance. My brother didn’t have a major problem as he started high school and could continue his education here.  I was at university studying software engineering but like my mother I also can’t do anything much until I improve my English. I hope to go to Ryerson University and complete my education.

So to reach our goals we decided to improve our English. My mother and I completed an English language assessment test and we started LINC classes at India Rainbow in September 2009. They put us in level 3 and 4 and now we are both in level 4. We have been attending classes regularly and we have found the English classes very helpful. We also needed help about other things and we asked for help in the main office. We can talk to the staff and they try to answer our questions and help us. Besides the language classes we have found other very helpful programs at India Rainbow. My mother and I attended a workshop on how to prepare a resume and another very interesting workshop was on how to dress for interviews.

In our English class we had a very good presentation on the basic things about taxes in Canada. This was a very important workshop because we need to learn about the tax system in this country.
By attending the LINC classes, we are also beginning to learn some things about Canada. We had one very interesting trip to the Ontario Science Centre. Last week we had a wonderful trip to the Kortright Centre where we learned about the symbol of Canada (Maple leaf) and how the pioneers learned about the maple syrup from the First Nations people and how they developed the processing of maple syrup.

India Rainbow School has been very useful to us in many things, not only in improving our English. They have a nice and helpful staff and they help us as much as possible in the things that we need. I recommend newcomers to make use of the services that India Rainbow provides; their services are helpful to newcomers and they make a lot of effort to help with their many programs.

Author: Saad Abdul-Salam