February 2023 Student Awards
2023 Taiga Galli Memorial Refugee Awards
Yahya Bakour, originally from Syria, is one of the recipients of the Taiga Galli Memorial Award in the sum of $3000. To demonstrate his courage and determination in adapting to a new language and culture, he has actively been involved in setting a positive example to youth living in and near downtown eastside. He created a neighborhood cleaning project with his younger brother, posting videos of cleaning the neighborhood to encourage other youth to keep their community clean. BC Parks Foundation acknowledged and honored his initiative.
Abdulrahman Al Odat, also from Syria, is the other recipient of the Taiga Galli Memorial Scholarship Award in the sum of $3000. To demonstrate his courage and determination in adapting to a new language and culture, he uses technology to better his community. Last year, with the help of friends, he came up with the idea to create a website to help newcomers find easy access to essential resources. As the head of the development team, he helped make the website by designing the theme and incorporating resources in a user-friendly manner. Community centers and organizations now use our website to help guide people towards English classes and housing.
2023 TCF Refugee Awards
Omer Ismail is one of the recipients of the TCF Refugee Award in the sum of $3000. In demonstrating his courage and determination in adapting to a new language and culture through his persist work on his English. Being born in Syria, traveling through Turkey to get to Canada, writing and organizing ideas presented a challenge to the younger Omer. However, he showed up every day to his classes and steadily made progress on his writing assignments until he had completed them.
Adil Hamy, from Syria, is the other recipient of the TCF Refugee Award in the sum of $3000. To demonstrate his courage and determination in adapting to a new language and culture, when he just started to speak English, he was eager to practice as much as he could. He didn’t hesitate to try out his new language skills and ask questions that allowed him to improve. In a relatively short period of time, Adil was able to fully converse in English and became a teacher and translator for other family members.
2023 Nicholas Collins Founders Refugee Awards
Julia (Lama) Daboul, also from Syria, is one of the recipients of the Nicolas Collins Founders Refugee Award in the sum of $3000. To demonstrate her courage and determination in adapting to a new language and culture, at school she is a thoughtful and responsible student whose work ethic is clear. Even though she was engaged in multiple extracurricular activities, she kept track of her responsibilities in her classes, asked for support when she needed it, and was diligent in turning in work on time. When faced with a conflict between her part time job and whether or not it was affecting her ability to excel at school – she eventually decided to cut down on her work hours so she could focus more on her studies.
Einas Alabar is the other recipient of the Nicholas Collins Founders Refugee Award in the sum of $3000. To demonstrate her courage and determination in adapting to a new language and culture she exemplifies resilience as she is a survivor of the Syrian War. This conflict took her dad’s life when she was seven years old. This forced her, her widowed mother and younger siblings to flee to Egypt and eventually to Canada. With her mum’s lack of English, Einas has become the family translator to help with doctor’s visits, and filling out forms, and making calls for her mum.
2023 David/BC TEAL English Language Learner Scholarship
Klint Cholo Taaca, originally from the Philippines, is the recipient of the David Lam / BC TEAL English Language Learner Scholarship in the sum of $4000. To demonstrate his taking an active part in community and school service, Klint has been consistently involved with after school programs and plays a major role in the completion of various leadership projects. Klint demonstrates exceptional leadership and mentorship skills in planning and facilitating various games and activities for other newcomer students. In addition, he has shown his passion in supporting newcomer youth and has executed his role with a great sense of responsibility and accountability.
November 2022 Educator Awards
2022 Project Funding Awards
Anu Pala is one of the recipients of the Project Funding Award in the sum of $2500. The project will focus on understanding the challenges and barriers that immigrants and refugees with diverse abilities including partial and complete vision loss face in the post-secondary environment.
The BC TEAL Conference Committee, represented by conference chair Neil Leveridge, is the other recipient of the Project Funding Award in the sum of $2500. The project is the 2023 conference itself, which, in addition to a diverse array of TEAL-related presentations, offers unique workshops from indigenous artists and elders as well as exploration and reflection walks in order to give attendees experiences of learning from the land.
2022 Pat Wakefield Scholarship
Calisto Mudzingwa is the recipient of the Pat Wakefield Scholarship in the sum of $3000. He plans to travel to Australia to attend workshops, speak to educators and government officials, and survey student experiences as immigrants to Australia. Using this information, Dr. Mudzingwa will present to BC TEAL shared successes and ideas how to better help the Canadian immigrant.