Our Writers
Migrated to Canada in 2002 from South Sudan. Currently working as a Settlement Worker with more than 11 years experience and work for Archway Community Services. The organization provides a variety of services, activities, and educational information in a non-judgmental and safe space to support clients. Help newcomers to Canada understand their rights and responsibilities and find the programs and services they need. Provide referral services, guidance, support and information: Assist clients with specific settlement needs to resources in order to settle in the province. Graduated in 2016 in Social Work from the University of the Fraser Valley. Married and have two children. Joined SNTC last year in order to tell a refugee story.
Albino Nyuol
Ana Cervantes was born in Tepatitlan, Jalisco. Arrived in Canada in 2014 as a visitor. She works for an organization that helps adults whose native language is English, as well as immigrants, refugees, refugee claimants, and other newcomers for whom English is an additional language. She joined SNtC because she had always wanted to say something about her life as an immigrant and how it helped her to help others in her life.
Ana Cervantes
Akberet Beyene grew up in Eritrea during the 30-year Eritrean- Ethiopian war. She achieved a Diploma in Mass Communication from the University of Asmara and worked for almost 20 years for the national TV station, becoming well-known for her writing and production of documentaries about social, political and health issues of women and youth. When the dictatorship relentlessly persecuted journalists, threatening her life, she fled to Canada in 2011. In 2019, after years of adjustment and suffering from PTSD, Akberet became a proud Canadian, deeply grateful for life and the support and opportunities in Canada.
Akberet Beyene
Angela moved to Canada in June 2013, after visiting the country several times. She lives in Abbotsford with her husband and 8-year-old daughter, she considers her muse, her inspiration for every step she takes in life. Angela currently works at the Archway Community Services as a childminding teacher for the LINC (Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada) program. She has years of experience in education teaching Italian as second language and dance to immigrant children.
Angela Manetti
Camille is known for getting into “Good Trouble”. She’s married to a politician, mother of 3 leaders, training & development consultant, activist and workplace bullying & harassment survivor. Camille speaks Trinidad & Tobago and Canadian English.
Website: www.canboulay.ca
Email: camille@canboulay.ca
Camille Mc Millan Rambharat
Diary Marif is an Iraqi Kurdish journalist. He has a master’s degree in History from Pune University in India. He worked with a TV channel in his home country as a documentary researcher. He later moved to Vancouver, Canada in 2017 and he has been writing nonfiction in English. He joined SNtC given that he wants people to know about his stories and interact with Canadian writers.
You can follow him on Twitter: @diary_khalid
Diary Marif
Shanga Karim, a women’s rights activist, worked for many years as a journalist and editor-in-chief of a women’s rights newspaper in Kurdistan where she raised awareness of gender-based violence, honor killings, and female genital mutilation, and advocated for women’s rights with international NGOs and state actors in Iraq. She fled Kurdistan and arrived in Canada as a refugee in 2015. Now, she continues to write and educate, utilizing her degree in Media /Journalism and more recently, ESL certification from the University of the Fraser Valley.
Shanga feels strongly about the power of writing as a means of empowerment for marginalized and oppressed groups, to carry out advocacy for human rights. As an activist, she serves as an important inspiration for other women, girls, and marginalized groups to tell their own stories and to advocate for human rights, locally and globally. Shanga worked as a research assistant at the Images of New Coming photovoice project at The University of the Fraser Valley while she was taking creative writing courses in 2022. And, today, Shanga is the Vancouver Coordinator for the Shoe Project, a nationwide initiative to encourage immigrant and refugee women in Canada to share their stories about migration and resettlement in Canada. She has also been a keynote speaker and facilitator in workshops and projects in BC, coaching marginalized groups such as refugee and newcomer youth and women to tell their own stories.
Shanga’s own migration story has been selected for publication by the Vancouver Writers Fest, and with an Early Career Development Grant from the BC Arts Council, Shanga is currently writing a memoir about her experiences, as well as those of other Kurdish women.
In 2022, Shanga won the Renate Shearer Award in recognition of her outstanding contribution and commitment to advancing women's rights in British Columbia and Internationally from The United Nations Associations in Canada, Vancouver.
Shanga Karim
Deea Badri was born in Kurdistan-Iraq. She is currently working as a Settlement Worker with MOSAIC in Metro Vancouver. She joined SNtC after working for several years in the biggest nonprofit Publish organization as an editor and essayist with journals in Kurdistan. Making a motivational atmosphere for newcomers was the main goal of being in this program and sharing the story of genocide, tragedy, hope, and survival.
Deea Badri
Jummeiz Kambidi was born and raised in Sudan and he immigrated to Canada in 2003. He is currently working for a non-profit organization, which provides services to newcomers. He joined SNtC in the hope that his story will be an inspiration to other immigrants.
Jummeiz Kambidi
Su-sheela Sharma completed a Master’s in Gender and Social Justice from McMaster University, with interests in critiquing mainstream feminism, advocating economic freedom for women, justice movements, and gender parities. Her studies also focus on Indigenous and non-Indigenous women’s health and hygiene, and meaningful participation in politics and decision-making. She uses ethnographic and archival research methods to examine her research questions. She is currently working at YWCA Metro Vancouver as a Case Manager and studying for a PhD in Gender Studies at Queens University ON, Canada from Fall 2023.
Sheela Sharma
Yuki Yamazai was born in Japan and moved to BC in 2011. She always had a strong interest in education, and she is currently taking TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) at University of Fraser Valley. She has been working as a teaching assistant in the LINC program (Language Instructions for Newcomers to Canada) and is hoping to support adult immigrant learners for their language learning as an instructor in the future.
Yuki Yamazaki
Venera Loshaj-Balaj is an Albanian from Kosovo who came to Canada in 1999 as a refugee, during the Kosovo war. As an alumna of the The Shoe Project, Venera recognized the importance of the history that immigrants bring to Canada and continued her contribution with her story. She writes about surviving as a mother of two little boys during the war, then coming to Canada and confronting another battle, which for some Canadians is hard to imagine. She has a degree in chemistry from the University of Prishtina and has found her passion in gardening, painting, and writing, which kept her very busy in the recent years.
Venera Loshaj-Balaj
Fleeing Russia as a refugee in 2012, Malena has seen both the best and worst sides of humanity. The support she received in Canada sparked Malena’s passion for race and gender equality, mental health accessibility, and building a better future for refugees and forcibly displaced communities. She currently lives in Vancouver, on the unceded and traditional territories of the sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), selí̓lw̓itulh (Tsleil‐Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Coast Salish Nations.
Malena is a member of the Prime Minister’s Youth Council and the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada Youth Advisory Group for the Government of Canada, a Terry Fox Humanitarian Award Scholar, and a social media manager for the University of Toronto’s RefugeAid Program. Inspired by the kindness and support she received as a newcomer in East Vancouver, she has spent the past decade in Canada volunteering for numerous organizations, sharing her story in writing and on stage, and mentoring young women, newcomers, and youth of diverse backgrounds.
Malena is completing her honours bachelor’s degree in humanities and social sciences at the University of Toronto.
Malena Mokhovikova
Rasha Haj Ibrahim is a Kurdish from Syria. She arrived in Canada in 2017 as a refugee through a sponsorship program by living Hope Church. She is a mother of three children. Currently she is studying Early Childhood Education at University of Fraser Valley. Hoping to become a teacher, as she was preparing to be a teacher in her home country, but the war destroyed everything she was dreaming of. She joined SNTC because she wants people know about newcomers, their stories and the difficulties they face in their new country.
Rasha Haj Ibrahim
Muhialdin completed a BA in Political Science and TESL from the University of Fraser Valley, with distinction, in 2018, while also working as Life Insurance Agent for the World Financial Group. After graduating, he joined the Universal Learning Institute in Coquitlam, British Columbia, as an ESL Instructor. In 2019, Muhialdin was accepted into the Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs (MPPGA) program at UBC. Currently, Muhialdin is looking forward to taking full advantage of the MPPGA program to shape his career path for local and global change as a policy analyst, with a particular interest in resource governance, energy, and human security.
Muhialdin Bakini
Nuria's passion is building the bridge that connects and serves other human-beings to create bigger legacies that transform the world. She is a Spanish- English speaker Coach. In her Chapter in Canada, Nuria unfolds her rite of passage while adapting and preserving the Self while learning to navigate in a system that determines her identity based on the social construction of immigration.
Nuria Sefchovich Friesen
Taslim Damji
Taslim Damji (she, her, hers) lives on the lands of the Coast Salish Nations. She is an Instructor at Vancouver Community College and at the University of the Fraser Valley. She holds a Master’s degree from King’s College, University of London and has been working in the field of Language, Settlement, Diversity and Well-being for many years as a Consultant, Teacher Educator, Trainer, and Facilitator. Taslim has always been interested in identity, perceived identity and how that shapes our human experience. She designs and delivers courses and training that promote Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) for local and national audiences. Taslim is a Registered Yoga Teacher, Mindfulness Instructor, Intercultural Practitioner, IDI Qualified Administrator and Anti-Racism Trainer as well as Former President of SIETAR BC.
Taslim’s family has been on the move for over a century and a half. Her relationship with Canada/Turtle Island and immigration story began in 1974 when she first came to Canada.
Dr. Sofia Noori is a professor at The University of British Columbia, Vancouver campus. She has extensive teaching experience in Toronto that ranges from kindergarten to graduate level courses. Her research focuses on young refugees who move to Canada and work to establish a stable sense of self and belonging. She is interested in understanding how these newcomers navigate various systems including, but not limited to schooling, health and healing, and procedures to citizenship in the aftermath of living in civil unrest, war, migration, transitory states, refugee camps, and resettlement. Her writing for this project provides a personal take on the complexities of what it means to be Indigenous to one place and become part of the colonial displacement agenda of another Indigenous community, elsewhere.
