By Carol Harrington / photographs by John Gaucher
Francesca Gabaldon, above: “I don’t want anyone to feel lost and alone, like my mom when she came to Canada.”
RECYCLED: This article was originally published in October 2007
Dozens of women sit at hexagon-shaped tables eating from paper plates piled high with rice noodle salad, cornmeal tostadas, meatballs and bison cranberry stew. International potluck cuisine, I call it. One woman skillfully nabs a chocolate-dipped strawberry with her chopsticks while a young girl in a frilly pink dress happily eats with her fingers. Their meals are interrupted by some yelling at the front of the room.
“I want to apologize,” Lynn Berry shouts over the jackhammers ra-ta-ta-tating one floor below. “Normally they aren’t doing construction at night. I don’t know long this will go on.”
I think back to the conversation I had with Berry yesterday, when she gave me directions to this gathering at Bow Valley College in downtown Calgary. “There’s so much talking going on at these sessions,” she said, “sometimes I think I need to bring a blow horn because there’s so much energy.” And that was sans jackhammers.
Tonight’s potluck is a graduation of sorts for this year’s New Horizons Mentoring Program. Established in 2004 by the Youth in Motion education foundation, a charitable organization with offices in Calgary and Toronto, the six-month program pairs mentors with immigrant protégés. It’s designed not only to help immigrant women find jobs and settle into their new lives in Canada, but also to give mentors an intimate window into cultures around the world. Through monthly get-togethers such as this one, as well as phone calls, e-mails and one-on-one meetings, mentees get help in their search for meaningful work. But as mentors discover, immigrant women, no matter where they’re from, inevitably encounter hurdles.
Tonight’s jackhammer symphony is a small glitch compared to the onslaught of obstacles new immigrants confront every day: language barriers, cultural differences, housing problems – even shyness can be a major challenge. I learned a lot about these stumbling blocks while living and working in Afghanistan for most of 2004. Based in Kabul as a stringer with the Toronto Star, I started and ran a monthly political newspaper for a Canadian non-governmental organization. Rah-e-Naw (translation: enlightenment) was written and produced mostly by women.
Although the dozen women I worked with were aspiring journalists, many were timid and shy. They lacked self-confidence. That was understandable: their spirits had been beaten down for years by Taliban men who believe that women are weak and feeble and should be cloaked in burkas. Even today, many women in Kabul (which is far more liberal than rural Afghanistan) don’t go out at night because, as the newspaper staff told me and believed, no respectable woman is seen in public after dark.
One 17 year old, Ellaha, was painfully shy at first, rarely making eye contact. She always wore bulky, dark clothing. But after several weeks as the newspaper’s graphic artist and editorial cartoonist, she transformed into a determined woman who cracked jokes, wore colourful clothes and made regular trips to the male-dominated printing house.
Gawhar, a journalism student at Kabul University, blushed and giggled – a lot – when we met. But after a few months of hard, dedicated work, she began to shine as the newspaper’s star, crafting impressive investigative articles. She single-handedly broke a story about election corruption after ferreting out Afghans who had several voting cards, which they discreetly sold to political parties, who in turn stuffed ballot boxes. The story was a coup for Gawhar because it beat all international journalists in Kabul and received a mention in the New York Times. Our newspaper, published in three languages, focused mainly on Afghanistan’s first-ever democratic elections. After a few months, many of the women proudly evolved into assertive journalists, interviewing male wannabe politicians – a bold move because women, in typical Islamic tradition, aren’t accustomed to questioning men.
Three years later, I’m thinking of Gawhar and Ellaha as I look around the room at Bow Valley College. I’m wondering about the mentors, about what they feel while coaching and guiding their charges. After my experiences starting a newspaper, I know this type of teaching can be frustrating, but if you persist and remind yourself frequently of the goal at hand – helping women get careers – the personal rewards run deep.
Mostly young but established professionals, the mentors tell me that, indeed, they “get” as much from their mentees as they give. They learn about their mentees’ foreign (and sometimes quirky) cultures and customs. They are humbled by the strength and courage of their mentees. They are emboldened; one mentor summoned the nerve to start going on blind dates after hearing how her mentee arrived pregnant from the Philippines. They translate everyday expressions such as “What’s up?” and explain what “camping” is to women who are baffled by the familiar tent-and-trailer icon on highway signs. They talk about Canadian office attire; one mentor spent a full hour discussing socks with her mentee. Some mentors are from immigrant families themselves; they empathize with their mentees’ daily struggles. Some simply cherish the opportunity to help other women.
“I really love working with women,” says mentor Lynne Perry-Reid. “I feel like there’s an automatic connection, no matter what culture you’re from, when you’re working with other women. It’s always a very caring, nurturing environment. It’s not competitive; everyone is working together.”
That’s so true. When women gather for a common purpose, a natural, instinctive bond often forms. Men do it too, usually while playing sports – it’s called male bonding. From my experiences, women tend to connect and relate differently. We have “hen parties” full of cackling and uncontrollable laughter. We nurture, support and inspire each another. We touch each other softly on the arm. We hug.
When the jackhammers stop rattling, Berry, New Horizons’ project manager in Calgary, looks up from the floor, from the source of the noise down below. “As always,” she says, “we begin with our bragging session. Anybody like to speak first? Remember we are all friends here.” Mentees may be uncomfortable speaking to a crowd, but getting out of their comfort zone is part of the program here.
Larisa Kulikova, a Russian who arrived in Calgary last year, stands up. “Most of us know that I work for a bank,” she begins with a thick accent. “The first week for me was a shock. I didn’t understand people. I had to read a lot of information online. It was so overwhelming, I asked the branch manager to switch to a teller position. I’m thinking, ‘I’m going to be fired.’ But I have a wonderful branch manager. She let me switch. Now I have more breath. I ask for help.”
After so many months in Afghanistan, I know too well about women being afraid to ask. In Canada – everywhere in the western world, for that matter – we’re raised and encouraged to question things. But in many countries, women are taught not to probe, especially one’s superior. It’s considered rude, disrespectful.
Before Kulikova sits down, the women break into applause. “That’s a very good message,” Berry says. “It’s always better to ask.”
Later, Berry tells me that running New Horizons feels like “herding cats” sometimes. Still, the program boasts a 95% success rate, with almost every mentee landing a job – many en route to their chosen career. At the beginning of each intake, Berry meets with mentors as a group. She tells them that while the program is “career focused,” mentors are urged to help mentees “figure it out” when they stumble in any way. Not to do the work for them, but to show them where to go.
“I’ve learned over the years that you can’t really separate life skills or personal issues from employability issues,” says Berry. “And mentees, and quite often mentors, have a lot to learn, and a lot to give.”
Category: Career Track, Leadership, Work, Working for Nothing
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