Christmas Fund: ‘family project’ made moving to Canada a dream come true

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Sami has dreamed for 10 years of moving to Canada from Algeria with her family. He finally got here in September, but not without some trouble along the way.

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“COVID put a lot of things on hold,” Sami said. “We ended up waiting a long time to get permission to come here.”

Sami came with his wife and three children. Two are teenage twins and the other eight. He called his adventure a “family project,” and the reason he left Algeria was to give his children the best education possible. It meant leaving a communications job behind, but he has worked to get his equivalences recognized here and is willing to find work outside of his profession.

He said that he will never forget arriving here after taking the connecting flight from Istanbul to Montreal.

“COVID made it completely different than what I had always expected,” Sami said. “We got off the plane, we took the test and we were lucky that friends of ours had installed an apartment for us. We spent 14 days in isolation. “

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When it was finally time to leave the apartment and experience her new country, Sami immediately set out to enroll her children in school. His wife has started taking French lessons. Your kids love their new routines.

“That was the hardest thing for me, not knowing where my children would go to school,” said Sami. “Because of the whole process of coming here, they missed the start of the school year. That’s all I could think of. “

With her family established, Sami can start looking for work.

“Now that my dream of coming to Canada has come true, I just want to add value,” he said. “I want to contribute.”

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