Hanan Sweidan graduated this morning. Again.
Born in Jordan, Sweidan studied to be a chemist and worked in Kuwait as a research assistant at the Kuwaiti Institute for Scientific Research until she moved back to Jordan.
She and her husband Basem, also a chemist, moved to Canada and Mississauga with their four sons in 2003.
When they arrived here looking for a better life, the family had some big decisions to make.
"I wanted to have a job related to my experience and my education (B.Sc. from the University of Kuwait)," Sweidan said.
It was decided Basem would get a job (He's since started his own wholesale business related to pharmaceuticals) and Hanan would go to school and try to resume her career as a chemist.
She spent a year upgrading her English. Then, acting on advice she received from many sources, she decided to go back to school here to add Canadian academic credentials to her resumé and improve her job prospects.
She graduated from the post-diploma program at Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning in environment last August.
"I am applying many places but still I have no job," the Erin Mills resident said.
"It's a competition," she said with a sigh.
A competition that's tough on anyone, but especially hard on a 47-year-old woman new to English and new to the country. Not to mention one who is paying tuition for two sons studying engineering at McMaster University.
Undaunted by her failure to land a job in her field yet, Sweidan took another major step to stay in her field when she signed up earlier this year for the Enhanced Language Training (ELT) program of Mississauga's Inter-Cultural Neighbourhood Social Services (ICNSS).
It's an intensive 10-week language program that takes foreign-trained professionals in three areas, environment, customer service and administration, and gives them a real grounding in Canadian business culture.
More importantly, it gives them a six-week placement that provides participants with a reference and local job experience on their resumés at worst, and, at best, provides them with a job. To date, 20-30 per cent of the mature students have been hired by the firms where they were placed.
Even if they don't get hired, the experience of working at a Canadian business, making contacts with others in your line of work and gaining some much-needed confidence is critical, said Sweidan. She finishes her six-week term tomorrow in an entry-level position at Maxxam Analytics, which has its head offices in Mississauga.
One of two students who spoke at the graduation, Sweidan said afterward that the ICNSS program is a bridge that helps newcomers span the huge gulf between their whimsical dreams of landing a job and the harsh reality of getting one.
"When we had our interview at the embassy when we came to this country, they accepted us as professionals," Hanan said of she and her husband. "I can't do anything else. I do not want to work at Tim Hortons," she said, niftily demonstrating that she's already in touch with the core values of Canadians.
It has been a tough three years. The attempt to land that elusive job has been a lot longer and harder than they had envisioned, but the Sweidans aren't giving up.
Hanan is speaking for many, many newcomers when she says: "We came here with a passion, to this great country, to contribute and to share. We came here to give and to gain. We came here with great hopes."