Millicent Mabi: Preparing for Syrian refugees' arrival to Canada

    1 of 1 2 of 1

      By Millicent Mabi

      Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his team are working hard to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees by December 2015 as promised in their election campaign.

      Today (November 13), the prime minister made public mandates of Canadian ministers, and top on the list for the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, John McCallum is “Lead government-wide efforts to resettle 25,000 refugees from Syria in the coming months”.

      The implication of this is that Canada’s postsecondary institutions will be welcoming some international colleagues soon. As a PhD student at UBC who has extensively studied the experiences of international students settling in unfamiliar locations, my interest is to help Canadian institutions understand these students so that they can better support them to achieve all round success. In doing this, I present the challenges faced by other international students in Canada, which I obtained through in-depth analysis of qualitative interviews with international students at UBC from 2006 to 2013.

      International students have said that there is limited social interaction in the Canadian society, including Canadian campuses. People come across one another often but do not communicate. Sometimes people nod at one another without as much as a hello! This is making international students very lonely. They have left their friends and family back home, sometimes travelled in precarious circumstances to arrive in Canada. They desire to talk to people—to Canadian students—but Canadian students, though polite and ready to help, are not making friends with these students.

      This situation is forcing international students to make friends among themselves to obtain the support they need. However, the students with their friends are not very knowledgeable about the workings of their new environment and therefore tend to struggle to survive. They do not understand Canadians and Canadian culture. Some of them do not speak English very well or French at all so they are shy to approach Canadian students. If Canadian students would stretch forth a hand of friendship, these students will leap at it with glee.

      Even faculty members are not very sensitive to the isolation that these students face. Faculty are interested in how the students perform in their academics, overlooking the fact that if students are not comfortable in their daily lives, such as getting comfortable accommodations and knowing where to find food to eat, their teaching can only be so effective. Students are not comfortable asking faculty for help with needs that are not academic related. If these students cannot talk to faculty members or other Canadian students about their everyday life struggles, it is quickly obvious how frustrated they can become.

      The students feel that nobody understands them or wants to help them. Canadian doctors sometimes cannot diagnose and treat simple illnesses common in students’ source countries but uncommon in Canada. Banks want them to be permanent residents or citizens before they will issue them credit cards. Their frustration is mounting. Yet, we want to bring in more to suffer the same fate?

      Most of the actions or inactions of the Canadian populace that inflict pain on international students are not intentional. Canadian students, for example, are very independent and so can get by without talking to most people. They also may not know how much international students need their friendship and support. Faculty may think that the welfare of these students is not very much their concern. Banks want to protect their interests and doctors do not have certain medical conditions in Canada and so sometime do not accurately diagnose or treat them adequately. So, who is responsible for these students? The government or their institutions of learning?

      The government takes care of other immigrant classes and seems to have left institutions to cater for their own international students. The institutions are doing their best. They organize orientation programs, hand out information—sometimes so much of it that the students feel they will drown in the deluge. The academic pressure is a lot and the students do not have time to read all the information. Some international students have even said that university services such as orientations are well-intended but sometimes misguided and unhelpful.

      The good news is that these barriers are surmountable if Canadian institutions are willing to do what it takes.

      Supporting international students to achieve all-round success will require the commitment of all stakeholders in the institution.

      Comments