Neelam Kapoor owns and operates a small cafe all by herself. But she’s got big dreams.

When a customer walks in, she quickly flashes a smile and takes her hand away from the keyboard. But as soon as the cafe is empty, the laptop’s screen glows on her face in the dimly lit area behind the counter.

She is creating a list of guests she wants to invite for her next event in June. Kapoor started a series of events called Synergy 2010 in May, as a part of the South Asian Heritage Month, which aims to bring out the hidden potential of women from all walks of life and different cultural backgrounds.

The event helps women showcase their talents, but before the event Kapoor finds herself knocking on the office doors of the city mayors she invites to hand out certificates of recognition to the participants.

“When I explain my motive that this is a multicultural event for women and for them to show their talent, they agree to come to my event”, says Kapoor.

Brampton Mayor Susan Fennell attended Kapoor’s event in May.

The steel counter top is spotless and she rests her elbows on it as she animatedly talks about her project.

“But I am making every effort to help myself and other immigrants who feel alienated in a new atmosphere,” she said as a customer walked in.

Having completed her Masters in Public Administration and a post- graduate diploma in Industrial Relations from Punjab University in India, Kapoor immigrated to Canada in 1999 and stayed in Alberta for a while before settling in Toronto. After eleven years in Canada, Neelam Kapoor has turned stepping stones into building blocks. “Events like Synergy provide a meeting ground for the newcomers,” said Kapoor.

Kapoor worked as a Manager at a popular food chain for six years before deciding to venture into social work and event management.

“People I hired there are still in touch with me”, says Kapoor.

After meeting so many people who were striving to belong and adjust, Kapoor felt the need to do more for those who had left their country.

It felt as if she were looking in the rearview mirror. Their effort was a reminder of her struggles. “Sometimes they just need someone who can listen to them.”

Kapoor’s mother worked as a registered nurse for 36 years and she retired last year. “She is my inspiration, I don’t remember her sitting idle,”said Kapoor.

At times when her husband is busy she brings her two sons to the cafe for a few hours. The four year old sits on the stool and behind the laptop and the seventeen-month old refuses to be anywhere else except in his mother’s arms.

Girls from the fashion show organized by Kapoor

Kapoor’s husband Pankaj Kapoor supported her constantly because he knew it was her dream to promote multiculturalism and to unveil the hidden potential of Synergy’s participants.

Kapoor has a penchant for designing also and she showcased her collection of jewelery and clothes in the Synergy event that took place in May.

Sometimes when everyone’s asleep I gather my beads and start working. I have to start a website soon. This can be a good online business,” said Kapoor as she flashed a smile and poured coffee for her next customer.

Kapoor’s next event Synergy 2010 will be held on 28 June, 2010 celebrating Canada Day with  Regional Councillor Elaine Moore and all the participants of Synergy.

“My message for women is to respect yourself and your dreams. You will definitely achieve the success you deserve”.

Proceeds from Synergy 2010 were donated to the Toronto Sick Kids Hospital.

Author:Zareen Muzaffar

Ontario Technological Skills Competition is the largest skilled trades competition in Canada with 1800 competitors, 30,000+ spectators, 60+ skilled trade contest areas over 325,000 square feet. The competition is meant for elementary, secondary and post secondary students.

Amit has been in Canada for only about two and a half years, and is on his way to benefiting from opportunities that Canada offers. His family, especially his brother who had been here a while longer, has been a great support to him.

Originally from Gujarat, Amit faced some barriers when he landed in Canada. Language was one of them.  “I was not used to English,” he says innocently, yet you could hardly tell if he had a real language barrier just a few years ago. He had taken ESL classes from Humber College.

The second major obstacle was credential recognition. It took him six months to get the required documentation from India. A high school graduate from India, he feels that “in India, there’s more focus on theoretical stuff than practical…mostly here, you go through practical stuff, what you are supposed to know at work place.”

Third was to pay for his tuition. You are not eligible for any loans or grants if you have lived for less than a year in Ontario. So while Amit was going through the process of credential recognition and so on, he worked at a gas station, saved money and paid for his tuition.

After working and saving for a year, he did not need to apply for any loans as he had saved enough, however in last year of his stay at Humber College, he applied for loan and was qualified for it.

There was another cultural challenge associated with paying for college. “Being responsible for myself was hard,” he says. “In India, our parents used to pay money for whatever education but here I had to pay for my own education.”

His message is clear and simple. “I don’t have good opportunities right now,” because of recession, “but in future I will have many opportunities.” A hope that many immigrants bring to Canada and keep ignited. And to accomplish their goals, they work hard for what they had left their countries of origin for.

Author: Asma Amaant

The Top 25 immigrants are from all walks of life. 10 of these 25 immigrants are from South Asian region. And it’s no surprise that there are a few doctors and entrepreneurs.

One sentiment common among these winners was that they did not understand or expected to be awarded the status of being Top 25 Canadian immigrants. Nonetheless, they were humbled and took the award as a responsibility to do more.

Here’s a conversation with a few of them.

I didn’t even understand it. I am quite happy about getting the award though. I look at this award as a first athlete to get a leadership award. I don’t take this as a black or an immigrant, but a leadership award that has been given to an athlete for the first time.

We need more support for our athletes. I hope we have a new attitude toward our young athletes. With proper leadership, we can get back to where we were when I was a sprinter. As a nation, we’ve gotten away from exercise. We need to shift our focus back to volunteerism and then kids’ loving sports. My expertise is the proper training of mind and body. Walking, hiking, bowling, sleeping properly are important for all in spite of spicy high-caloried South Asian cuisine.

-          Donovan Bailey, Retired sprinter and businessman in Toronto

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The award puts more responsibility for us to do more to contribute back to the community. You should not get a job or position or an opportunity because you are from minority community. You should get a job because you deserve it. When I came 9 years ago, I wasn’t aware of the concept of networking and volunteering. Though it is not common in South Asian community to volunteer, it is changing with the youth being more involved.

Parag Tandon, Consultant, Think Brown Media, Toronto

Ms. Susan Gordon, Vice President Marketing/Marketing Services at Rogers

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Most of her work is with the First Nations, no wonder, then, that she is called the Angel of North. Family networking in First Nations’ culture is the same as South Asia. Dr. Lalita Malhotra had no problem in assimilating within the community in 70s and 80s. She thinks that there is more economic advantage for physicians to live in small communities than bigger cities.

-          Dr. Lalita Malhotra, Family practitioner, obstetrician and gynecologist in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan

___________________

What was overwhelming me for was that I became more motivated to do more for the community. The award isn’t really about my being successful in work, many people are more successful than I am. To me the award means to reduce the difficulties that new immigrants face when they land in Canada.  A lot of people are utilizing services, so no funding cuts should be made by the government to any community or women’s organizations especially when we are aware that the immigrants would be an asset to Canada.

-          Vinod  Karna, Diversity recruiter, Sun Life Financial in Markham

It was like plunging into a deep lake on my first day. And the worst part was that I couldn’t swim! Everything was so new, so different, and so tough, that I almost lost myself in an attempt to blend in to the environment. I forgot that being yourself can be your biggest asset. It took me a couple of months to realize it. I have to admit that my new “personality” almost changed me into a rude, angry and sulking person who couldn’t take a joke. Almost. I caught myself just in time at around February.

And, I felt a bit of unexplained joy when my locker started to feel homely. One good thing about joining the school weeks after term started was that I didn’t have to share my locker with anyone! I had my own, personal space which felt like a place I could trust (mostly because of the heavy lock hanging from it) but also because the people here were so honest and nice.

Every teacher here was a guide and friend, both of which I needed back then. Leaving the few guides I had back in India and finding new ones here was certainly something to go through. And although the system was much easier, it was still quite difficult to grasp the new style of learning.

Now that I am somewhat accustomed to the new styles, the next big thing – and fear – is high school. I’m scared that I might find myself in that jumped-into-a-lake-and-can’t-swim position again. But high school is about four months away, so I don’t feel I have anything to think or worry about right now except my life in my current school.

But even as this school seemed amazing to me during my initial days here, there was one thing it didn’t have yet: friends. I missed my friends more than anything when I used to roam around the field at recess alone, lost in my thoughts. Not that I had many friends, though. I’m not the kind of person who thinks they’ve made a friend just because they’ve said a simple “hello” to some nobody. Which is probably why I didn’t have many friends to begin with. But the few I had were as close to me as my own life. And, I remembered how I used to spend time with them during recess back in India, while I walked around the edge of the fields in the snow during the last winter. I had made a promise to myself not to tell anyone about this, because I was sure I would make a friend one day or the other. At least, I hoped.  Later on in the year however, I admitted this to the school counselor. She recommended I try to make friends at a meeting that took place on Tuesdays. I have to say, it really helped. I have finally made a friend.

However, even now, there are moments when I feel like I don’t quite fit in. I try my best to blend into the environment.  I know it’s going to take a long time before I feel at home, but – heck – I’ve got all the time in the world.

Author:Aneesh Chatterjee

The Canadian Experience, a collection of 52 columns by some of Canada’s best historians, will explain who we are, where we came from, and where we’re going. The columns will be polite — we’re Canadian, after all! — but they’ll be blunt and point to shortcomings as often as they sing Canada’s praises. Self-criticism is another Canadian habit. What the columns will always be is interesting and informative, a good guide for Canadians old and new.

The series will begin with a look at Canada’s geography and climate — we know it’s cold! — and then discuss the basics of Canada’s government. What’s a Governor-General?, for example, and why should someone appointed by the Queen (and why does Canada still have a Queen?) be the commander-in-chief of the Canadian Forces? Why does a liberal democracy like Canada have an appointed Senate? How do elections work here? The courts? The public service?

Then we turn to politics: the present political parties, Conservatives, Liberals, the New Democratic Party, and the Bloc Québécois. Just how is it that Quebec sends separatist Members of Parliament to Ottawa? What kind of nation permits separatists dedicated to the destruction of Canada as it is to sit in its Parliament? The answer, Canadians will say, is a democratic nation. Then the series will examine the nation’s greatest prime ministers, Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, William Lyon Mackenzie King, and Lester “Mike” Pearson to name a few.

And then we turn to the people of Canada. The First Nations, appropriately enough, come first, as they were the initial inhabitants of the land that became Canada. They were followed by the French, the British, and a host of others, settling the land and arguing with each other over language, religion, and political power. Over time, and especially in the last 50 years, the population changed dramatically as immigrants came to Canada from China, India, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. A formerly “white” nation became “a coat of many colours,” as someone once described it, a nation with citizens from every part of the globe. Soon Parliament had declared Canada a multicultural nation, recognizing the reality.

The series then looks at the provinces and regions that make up Canada and at the way the federal government in Ottawa deals with the provinces and territories. Federal-provincial relations are a critical part of Canada’s governmental system, and as some provinces grow quickly and get richer, others lose people and wealth. Canada is one of the few nations that attempts to equalize wealth across the country with richer provinces contributing funds to reach a rough balance of services for all. It’s far from being perfect, but Canadians at least try.

The Canadian Experience then looks at the way Canada and Britain have managed their relations. London was the centre of the world for much of Canada’s early colonial history, and Ottawa played an important role in turning the British Empire into the Commonwealth of Nations. But if Canada became independent of Britain, as it was by 1931, its sharing a continent with the United States forced it to deal with the giant next door. This was not always easy and Canadians, one historian said, were the first anti-Americans. We’ll look at how Canadians get on with Uncle Sam.

The series ends with a long look at Canada’s military history. Some Canadians think their nation has been and still is the world’s best peacekeeper, and many do not even realize that Canada has fought wars for its survival. More than 115,000 Canadians died in World Wars I and II, fighting for democracy and freedom; others fought in Korea early in the 1950s, and Canadians today are fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. But Canada has indeed been a peacekeeper, one of the inventors of the idea at the United Nations and one of the major participants in dozens of peace operations.

Canada’s history is a proud one. This is a nation that has never invaded another country in its own self-interest. This is a country that has never fought an aggressive war. Canada is a liberal-democratic state that, of course, has its national interests and its cherished values, and as such, it tries to work out its domestic and foreign policies in peaceful ways. Welcome to The Canadian Experience.

Author: J.L. Granatstein

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

April 13 will be a day marked all around the world for Vaisakhi. Vaisakhi is the Sikhs’ New Year, and traditionally recognized as the new harvest season in Punjab, India. According to the Nanakshahi calendar, it falls on the first day of the Vaisakh month, which is April in the Gregorian calendar.

Religiously, it is a significant holiday for the Sikhs as it celebrates the establishment of the faith by the 10^th Prophet-Guru, Guru Gobind Singh in 1699. The foundations of the faith were laid out, including the principles of gender equality, the elimination of caste discrimination, and the physical identity of the Sikhs such as the carrying of the kirpan (small sword), kara (iron bracelet), and keeping of the hair. Those Sikhs who become baptized and accept all the teachings of the Guru are then referred to as the Khalsa – a community that radiates glory, justice and love.

Sikhs have been in Canada for over 100 years and their commitment to this country is shown through their contribution to society. After the initial fear and discrimination against them, you can now see Sikhs in almost every walk of life, in almost every city across Canada.

I practice my faith as best I can in a city where my local Gurduara is not accessible by public transportation (I don’t have a car) and seeing a fellow Sikh on the streets of downtown Ottawa is a delightful treat. But when it comes to Vaisakhi, and having the opportunity to take part in the community festivities, I’m all for it.

On the last Sunday of April, I make my annual pilgrimage to Toronto and participate in the massive parade starting from the CNE grounds and ending at Nathan Philip Square downtown. All around, you see men with orange turbans and women with orange scarves. You’re literally swimming in a sea of Sikhs with orange waves. It’s beautiful. It’s organized by all the southern Ontario Gurduaras and the number of observers (or participants?) can hit up to over 25,000.

I remember my childhood memories of Vaisakhi with great fondness. My family would visit the Gurduara early in the morning and I would feel such bliss and peace while listening to the sacred hymns from our holy book. Then we would walk in the parade and enjoy all sorts of sweets and treats during the route. Later we would get together with family and friends and I remember the fun, happiness and joy.

Vaisakhi is a reminder to all of us to reflect on the Guru’s vision of personal and community development, revive the spirit, and respond to the critical issues and challenges all around us. Vaisakhi is a time to reconnect with the roots.

Happy Vaisakhi!

Author:Rupinder Kaur

This was the question posed to our 9th grade class by a teacher on Independence Day. Clearly, she was expecting a unanimous roar of yes – which is what she got. But what she wasn’t expecting was to find a trickle of students here and there that stayed mutely silent. So when she asked these students to stand up and explain themselves, the class suddenly hushed down, staring at the standing figures in obvious disbelief.

Trying hard to ignore these blatant stares, I mentally began to search for an explanation. But I couldn’t find one – at least, not one that I could put into words. How do you explain something when you don’t quite understand it yourself? It’s not like I had anything against India – definitely not, and I made this quite clear to everyone. But that didn’t automatically mean that I was proud of it either. There was just…no feeling.

Would you feel undeniably proud if you were called an earthling? Does your heart stir up in passion and excitement every time you hear the word ‘Earth’ or ‘World’? Exactly. Mine didn’t either, because to me, India was my entire world. I don’t mean this in a cheesy sort of way, but that is literally how I felt about it. I had never lived out of India, or in a place where I wasn’t surrounded by Indians. To me, foreigners meant anyone who was not Indian. ‘South-Asian’ meant little to me, because my geography classes only covered the categories of continents, countries and cities, none of which include ‘South Asia’. Back then, if someone had called me ‘brown’, I would have been terribly offended. I mean, seriously, brown??? That’s how you would identify me?!?!

Just so you know, that was five years ago. And five years can be a long time.

People often say that it’s easy to criticize something from the outside; you need to actually get involved in it to truly understand it. I worked in the opposite direction. While I was in India, I never understood it. Sure, I understood the population, pollution and poverty crises, but I never actually understood what was there to be proud of. The cows sleeping in the middle of a busy road, oblivious to the traffic jam they had caused? Not likely.

But stepping away from it all, I missed it – all of it. And it was in those moments of home-sickness that I started to realize what India meant to me. It’s the only place where you find more people walking on the roads than driving on them. It’s where you can eat pav bhaji and pani puri from the street without a care about hygiene issues. It’s where you can spend two days playing cards in a jam-packed train that has already been delayed by ten hours because it chose to stop in the middle of nowhere. It’s where you can switch between Hindi and English in any random conversation without having to think about it.

Basically, it’s home. And that makes all the difference in the world.

Realizing what India means to me, I now feel like I actually have a sense of identity in this world. I can proudly say that I am an Indian, and that pride comes not from ‘culture and heritage’, but from those small insignificant moments that I could have only experienced in India. Call it pride, call it what you will.

I call it being brown.

Author:Ruchitta Mittal

That is why I have introduced legislation which would improve Canada’s asylum system, deliver quicker decisions on claims, provide faster protection to those who need our help, and more quickly remove those who do not.

The Honourable Minister Jason Kenny

Canadians can be proud of our long-standing compassion and commitment to help those who are persecuted and displaced in conflict zones around the world. Among industrialized countries, we are second only to the United States in the number of refugees we welcome to this country to start a new life.

Each year, we welcome 10,000-12,000 refugees to Canada from abroad, many of them living in desperate conditions in refugee camps or urban slums–women, men and children forced to flee their homes to escape war, famine and natural disasters. That represents 10 percent of all refugees resettled around the globe.

Then there are those who make the long trek to Canada and seek asylum once they arrive. Many of their stories are harrowing and tragic. They tell of loss and fear and hope for a new life here in Canada.

But there is another part to this story. And unfortunately it is a story of abuse, of people taking advantage of our generosity and goodwill to try to find a back door into Canada rather than wait their turn in the immigration queue.

Prior to our imposition of visas on citizens of Mexico and the Czech Republic last year, Canada had seen a 60 percent increase in the number of asylum claims over two years. Canada receives more asylum claims per capita than any comparable democracy (38,000 asylum claims in 2008), 58 percent of which are unfounded. These numbers suggest that for many, Canada has become a destination of choice for false claimants.

The numbers are alarming. Approximately 60,000 people are waiting for decisions on their claims for asylum. With all the available recourses and appeals, it generally takes 4.5 years from the start of an asylum claim until a failed claimant is removed from Canada. In some extreme cases, it has taken 10 years or more.

Too much time and too many resources are being spent on reviewing claims by people who are not refugees and who abuse the system to stay in Canada for years, often at taxpayers’ expense.

That is why I have introduced legislation which would improve Canada’s asylum system, deliver quicker decisions on claims, provide faster protection to those who need our help, and more quickly remove those who do not.

These changes, if passed, would also allow us to do more to help victims of violence and persecution as we also plan to increase by 2,500 the number of refugees resettled to Canada, while giving them more support to start their lives over again.

Only by fixing our broken in-Canada system can we effectively increase the generosity of our overseas system. This is why improvements to the overseas and in-Canada asylum programs are being pursued together, with changes to be contingent on our legislation being passed.

I encourage you to visit my department’s website at www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/reform.asp to learn more about the bold steps we are taking.

Canada will always be open to genuine refugees. Our model for refugee protection continues to be anchored in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and international agreements. These new measures respect the principles of fairness and effectiveness for the human rights of all.

We are honouring the values and traditions that Canadians hold dear, and we will continue to do so by ensuring that our asylum system is fair and balanced for those who truly need our protection.

Author: Mr. Jason Kenny is the federal Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and Multiculturalism.

The emphasis on speeding up immigration processes is easy enough to understand. Until recently some visa offices were taking as long as 5 years to process a skilled worker application. The government claims that since it introduced its changes to the Federal Skilled Worker immigration program it has reduced the number of cases in the backlog by 40 percent. A reduction in the backlog means that that has been or will be a reduction in processing times.

The government is aiming to have new skilled worker applications processed in one year or less. This is good for everyone … except those who no longer qualify for immigration because the list of relevant jobs was shortened.

And that is the other element of this strategy: to limit the kinds of work experience that qualify an applicant for immigration. The government claims that it is restricting eligible work experience to those jobs that are currently in demand in Canada.

It is worth remembering that government is a little clumsy when it develops its lists of eligible work experience. The exercise is naturally quite inexact. But in an effort to make the list more responsive to the Canadian labour market, the Government is now talking to Canadian employers to find out where we need skilled foreign workers, and where we have enough Canadian workers that we do not need foreign workers. These consultations will determine which kinds of work experience will be on the revised list.

That should also mean that successful applicants should find it easier to find relevant work in Canada… although the Canadian government does not guarantee that.

It is impossible to know in advance how many jobs will be on the revised list. The existing list was designed before the world was hit with those American economic problems. Does that mean the new list will be shorter? Or is the government going to anticipate that the Canadian economy will continue to recover and that a year from now we will need more workers, not less? It remains to be seen.

One thing is certain: if you have work experience that is currently on the government’s list, you should apply as soon as possible. You will want to file your application before the list changes, because if your work experience is dropped from the list when the list is amended, your opportunity will may be gone.

Author:James Gregory