Backgrounders - Twelve Canadians Receive Canada’s Citizenship Award

Biographies

Dr. James Chi Ming Pau
Vancouver, British Columbia

Since his arrival in Canada in 1975, Dr. James Pau has been an active community volunteer. He began by visiting seniors and new immigrants in their homes and providing English instruction to homebound immigrants.

For the past 30 years, Dr. Pau has helped residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighbourhood, many of them new immigrants, deal with poverty, inadequate housing, health issues and drug and alcohol abuse. He provides free seminars and workshops to help immigrants who are homesick and those who turn to drugs after arriving in Canada. Dr. Pau actively promotes world peace, human rights and harmony between people of different religions.

As a heath care professional, Dr. Pau volunteers hundreds of hours each year in the Alternate Medicine Clinic where he sees patients from diverse ethnic groups.

He is an unsung hero who volunteers his time and energy to help others, asking nothing in return.

Maria Logan
Vancouver, British Colombia

Over the past 50 years, 93 year old Maria Logan has helped welcome more than 10,000 new Canadians as a volunteer with the Greater Vancouver Citizenship Council. Ms. Logan helps out at citizenship ceremonies by arranging the room, seating families, serving refreshments and doing whatever she can to welcome the new citizens.

Since arriving in Canada from Switzerland in 1950, Ms. Logan has dedicated her life to helping others as a member of the Canadian Red Cross Corps, the Vancouver Swiss Society and through her many volunteer activities. She has been honoured with the Governor General’s Canadian Caring Award.

Maria Logan’s extraordinary dedication to helping others is an inspiration to all Canadians.

Shokoofeh Moussavi
Calgary, Alberta

For over 20 years, Shokoofeh Moussavi has worked for the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association, initiating programs that meet the changing needs of the city’s immigrant and refugee communities. Her passion and commitment to helping those in need are evident to anyone who meets her.

Through her work, she has provided support and counseling to immigrant women who were abused or are in need of help. Ms. Moussavi also set up and runs a program that provides support, resources and services for foreign live-in caregivers.

In 1992, she established a legal clinic in partnership with Calgary Legal Guidance. Ms. Moussavi continues to manage the clinic, where volunteer lawyers provide free legal guidance to immigrant women and their families. To date, the clinic has helped over 7,200 newcomers.

Through her work in the community, Ms. Moussavi has provided leadership and support to thousands of immigrants.

Read more of her story.

Dr. Kazi Sadrul Hoque
Toronto, Ontario

As Executive Director of Settlement Assistance and Family Support Services (SAFSS) for the past eight years, Dr. Hoque has played a key role in assisting refugees and newcomers successfully integrate into Canadian society. He has made outstanding contributions to promote intercultural understanding and responsible citizenship through SAFSS programs and services. These programs serve 12,000 newcomers each year.

Dr. Hoque actively volunteers in several community service agencies including the Canadian Cancer Society, Bangladeshi – Canadian Community Services and the Newcomer Women Centre to promote citizenship, civic pride and respect for core Canadian values. He has helped tens of thousands of newcomers become Canadians who understand the rights and responsibilities of citizenship and are active members of their communities.

Mario Guilombo
Toronto, Ontario

Mario Guilombo is a lawyer and human rights activist who fled his native Colombia after facing persecution for his humanitarian work. Since arriving in Canada, he has worked to support over 6,000 newcomer and refugee families.

He is the founder of several organizations that help immigrants, including Casa de las Americas, a non-profit organization in Toronto. He counsels refugees and newcomers and provides assistance to victims of human rights violations. He also organizes workshops and educational programs about the rights and responsibilities of new citizens and newcomers.

As an Officer with the Navy League of Canada, he has worked with many young people to provide them leadership training and help in their development as future Canadian leaders. He is a board member of the Canadian Human Rights International Organization, and was selected among the ten most influential Hispanic Canadians in 2008. In 2009, he was recognized as one of the top 25 immigrants in Canada.

Xiaoran (Joshua) Jiang
Toronto, Ontario

As an 11-year old newcomer to Canada, Joshua Jiang experienced many difficulties adapting to his new home, initially having trouble with language, culture and loneliness. He vowed to help others in his position.

In 2007, at the age of 15, Joshua organized the first of four “Hope and Light” events to raise funds for ORBIS, a non-profit organization dedicated to the prevention and treatment of blindness worldwide. He recruited and led student volunteers to organize competitions in mathematics, chess and public speaking in the Chinese community. Joshua and his team of young volunteers organized two seminars to provide newcomers with information about the North American post-secondary education system. These seminars were attended by over 300 immigrant students and parents.

Joshua, now a student at the University of Toronto, has raised nearly $10,000 for ORBIS and has helped many young newcomers integrate into Canadian society by volunteering in their communities. He has also shown many newcomers that charity is an integral part of Canadian culture.

Dr. Ambaro Guled
Toronto, Ontario

Dr. Ambaro Guled has been a community health worker in Toronto’s Regent Park since 1993. She volunteers extensively in the mainly immigrant neighbourhood by helping newcomers adjust to Canadian society. A refugee from Somalia, Dr. Guled founded the Youth Recreational Program in Regent Park in 1997 and has initiated several programs to assist immigrant women, youth and seniors. She has set up ESL courses for women and a homework club for young students. Dr. Guled speaks English, Somali, Italian and Romanian, and has acted as a liaison between school boards and newcomer parents in the community.

She not only organizes field trips to teach newcomers about Canadian history and culture, but also promotes activities that educate Canadians about Muslim and African culture. Dr. Guled’s leadership, dedication and warmth has eased the settlement process for many newcomers in Regent Park.

Dr. Hoanh Khoi Nguyen (Dr. Khoi)
Toronto, Ontario

Dr. Hoanh Khoi Nguyen arrived in Canada in 1980, determined to succeed in his new homeland. After graduating from the University of Toronto’s medical school in 1988, he vowed to use his resources to help new immigrants appreciate and adjust to life in Canada.

Over the past two decades, Dr. Khoi has helped Nicaraguan refugees unite with their families in Ontario, raised funds for tsunami victims, worked as a volunteer physician for Bosnian refugees, and provided medical treatment to hundreds of new immigrants and low income families.

As a volunteer advisor for the Vietnamese Association, Toronto, he helps new immigrants with settlement services. In 2010, he encouraged the Vietnamese Canadian community to reach out to other Canadians and ethnic communities by joining with groups including First Nations, Tibetan, Spanish and Japanese, to participate in the Lunar New Year Festival at the Canadian National Exhibition.

Christopher Harris
Ottawa, Ontario

Christopher Harris has spent almost 50 years improving relations between police and visible minorities in the National Capital Region. His work as a volunteer with the Ottawa Police Service dates back to 1962, and he has worked with the RCMP for the past 26 years. Due to his relentless efforts, the Ottawa Police Service and the Ottawa Fire Service have made extensive changes to their hiring and training practices to welcome more visible minorities and Aboriginal people. Mr. Harris initiated the Ottawa Police Service’s cross-cultural sensitization program and was instrumental in establishing procedures to deal with issues between police and the community.

He has helped establish countless organizations committed to the equitable treatment of all members of Canadian society, including the Ottawa-Carleton Immigrant Services Organization, the Jamaican (Ottawa) Community Association, the National Council of Jamaicans and Supportive Organizations in Canada and the National Capital Alliance on Race Relations. He served as Chair of the City of Ottawa Advisory Committee on Visible Minorities for six years and was the driving force in the establishment of Ottawa’s Multicultural Centre which provides support to ethnic and new Canadians.

Mr. Harris has earned several awards for his outstanding contributions including the Country’s highest honour, the Order of Canada.

Elizabeth Rapley
Ottawa, Ontario

Elizabeth Rapley has provided assistance to refugees since 1956 when she welcomed a young Hungarian refugee couple into her home. Active in a number of volunteer organizations while she raised a family and pursued a PhD in history, Ms. Rapley immersed herself in Project 4000 in 1979, providing settlement assistance to Cambodian refugees.

In 1989, she was one of the founding members of the Interchurch Refugee Group, an organization of volunteers in Ottawa’s East End dedicated to sponsoring refugees. So far, the Group has resettled 13 families — 26 adults and 30 children. She has dedicated countless hours helping every one of them successfully resettle in Ottawa.

At the age of 79, she has not slowed down. She remains active in Helping with Furniture, a registered charity she set up in 2005 that furnishes the homes of refugee claimants in Ottawa. She is also currently involved in supporting a family of sponsored refugees from Iraq.

Rosemary A. Segee
Montreal, Quebec

Whether it is finding housing for a family in need, helping with legal issues or directing newcomers to the necessary resources, Rosemary Segee has a deep commitment to improving the lives of those who live in her community.

She has developed several projects in the Montreal community of Little Burgundy. The Burgundy Urban Mediation and Prevention (BUMP) project assists community members with conflict resolution and works to improve community relations with the police. BUMP has served as a model for similar projects in four other communities. Ms. Segee also started the Tyndale Treasures Store which provides retail training for community members and assists low income families by selling affordable clothing and small appliances.

Many of Ms. Segee’s efforts target youth. In response to violence in the black community, she set up a grass roots inner-city organization to help young black adults aged 16 to 30 address the socio-economic, educational, health and justice issues they face. In 2007, she set up a recording studio and implemented a music program for youth between the ages of 12 and 17. Two years later she co-developed a youth training program to ensure that those aged between 16 and 25 had access to opportunities. She also provides personal and career counseling for individuals and community groups.

Gail McKay
Fall River, Nova Scotia

Over eight years ago, Gail McKay spearheaded the establishment of an Ecumenical Refugee Committee in the Fall River, NS area. Buoyed by her passionate interest in social justice and humanitarian issues, she organized a number of area churches to sponsor new arrivals to Canada. Her enthusiasm has helped raise awareness of the responsibility of communities to help meet the needs of newcomers. She leads by example and educates as she leads.

Her committee first sponsored a family from Sierra Leone to settle in Halifax. Mrs. McKay was instrumental in raising the necessary funds to welcome a mother and her three teenage sons to the community. She actively encouraged community members to get involved in welcoming the newcomers. In 2006, she opened her home to a young mother from Afghanistan and three of her children. She worked tirelessly for two years to bring the woman’s other two children to Canada, joining the celebration when the family of six was finally reunited after so many years apart.

Both families have adjusted to life in Canada, and the special relationships forged by Mrs. McKay endure to this day.