Page 47 - Shahrvand BC No.1232

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47 2 Iranians are among top 75 finalists
From more than 600 nominations, 2 Iranians are among Top 75 finalists of 2013
1392 ‫ نیدرورف‬9 ‫ جمعه‬- 1232 ‫ شماره‬/ ‫سال متسیب‬
In touch with Iranian diversity Sara Eftekhar
Occupation: Student
Country of Origin: Iran
City: Vancouver, B.C.
In Canada For: > 10 years
Vol. 20 / No. 1232 - Friday, Mar. 29, 2013 About her:
Sara Eftekhar, 23, has been a
47 community activist from a very
young age with a global perspective.
Currently, she is the B.C Youth
Ambassador for the Canadian
Council for Refugees (CCR), helping
to organize the youth component of
the CCR Vancouver Consultation,
which will happen at the end of May
2013, mobilizing refugee youth to
share their stories. She is also going school and believes that volunteering
to be helping to organize workshops
at the Global Youth Assembly in
Edmonton. She recently helped
organize the Morning Makeover
Event for women in the Downtown
Eastside Women's shelter and she
is constantly involved in several
projects such as creating radio public has volunteered in Ecuador, Turkey,
service announcements to raise
awareness about the rights of children Egypt, Sri Lanka and Japan. Sara
and youth, engaging immigrant youth
and aboriginal youth through art,
teaching health classes to the most
vulnerable populations in Vancouver,
volunteering at a soup kitchen in
the Downtown Eastside and writing
articles for University of British
Columbia's (UBC's) faculty of
medicine Global Health newsletters.
She is also one of the executive
directors and co-founders of the Civic Canadians from other provinces,
Association of Iranian Canadian
Youth Group, which focuses on
community action projects to
empower Iranian-Canadian youth.
Eftekhar immigrated to Canada at the
age of eight with her family, and she
after her three-year-old brother while Youth Award from the Mayor of
her parents worked long hours and
shift work. She was bullied at school
for her inability to speak English,
but never told her parents about the
struggles she was facing because she
could see they had other problems to
worry about.
Her volunteer experience started
when she made friends with the
janitor of her elementary school who
was also an immigrant and spoke
very little English. She helped him
by volunteering to pick up garbage
around her school, which lead to her
forming a student council in support
for a more clean school.
She kept up her volunteering in high
gave her confidence and empowered
her to become a leader and she wants
to share that with all youth, especially immigration, housing, youth
newcomers.
Outside of British Columbia,
Eftekhar has represented Canada at
international conferences and she
Brazil, Tanzania, Europe, India,
was awarded a prestigious fellowship
from Tony Blair, while working
on Parliament Hill in Ottawa as a
youth ambassador, alongside Senator
Mobina Jaffer, to advocate for global
health causes.
Recently, Eftekhar was awarded
a prestigious scholarship from the
Government of Japan to represent
the province of B.C, along with other
to study international relations
from political experts from around
the world, at the United Nations
University in a program called Ship
for World Youth.
Eftekhar has won the Outstanding
North Vancouver and the Diamond
Jubilee medal. She has been
nominated for the Global Citizen
Award from B.C. International
Cooperation, the prime minister
volunteer award, Young Woman of
Distinction Award as well as a B.C.
high achievement award from the
Province of B.C.
In addition to all of that, she is
currently a fourth-year nursing
student at UBC and one of the top
grads of 2013. She is being featured
Soheila Ansari
Occupation: Settlement worker
Country of Origin: Iran
City: Vancouver, B.C.
In Canada For: >10 years
About her:
Since Soheila Ansari started working
as a settlement worker with the
Vancouver School Board, she has
performed almost 1,600 different
types of services for families. These
include some of the following:
help with the education system,
and family problems, continuing
education, job searches, teaching
how to pay bills, and accompanying
people to court.
Ansari has truly been an agent
of change: she ran workshops on
Canadian culture and life skills, and
she pioneered the first Farsi parenting At YES Canada as a program
session, beginning in 2008 with 10
members — this group now enrols
25-35 participants. She started a
youth group that meets weekly at
the high school after hours. She also
makes herself available to many
who call from outside her district.
The trust and respect she inspires
from the community is remarkable.
Ansari arrived in Canada in 1997
in the UBC Faculty of Applies
Science booklet for the Dean and she
was nominated amongst all of UBC
2013 grads as 'student most likely to
change the word'. Sara is extremely
proud of her Iranian heritage and
honored to represent young Iranian
women all over the world and share
her culture with others.
Source:
http://canadianimmigrant.ca/canadas-top-25-
immigrants/vote/
with her husband and two children,
as a skilled worker. On the second
day of their arrival she began
volunteering at the Immigrant
Services Society of B.C. so she could
learn about the organization and the
clients they served. Ansari continued
working at ISS, studying English
and upgrading her qualifications.
She took every course she could
get and within four years she was
the resource advisor, facilitator and
employment counsellor. She took
basic counselling, career practitioner
skills and group facilitation. She
also completed the Immigration
Practitioner Certificate program.
Fluent in both Farsi and Dari, with
some knowledge of Turkish, she was
able to have a good understanding
of the many challenges immigrants
face.
coordinator/employment counsellor,
she also visited the women's
correctional centre once a month.
She dealt with immigrant women
who were victims of domestic abuse,
referring them to the appropriate
services. She has also worked with
women who are survivors of war.
Source:
http://canadianimmigrant.ca/canadas-top-25-
immigrants/vote/