41135311•03/26/13
41110445•03/26/13
The emerging reality cont.
any program challenges and logistical problems the staff may face.
Holy Family Academy teacher Daina Rorke speaks to St. Joseph's Collegiate principal Bonnie Annicchairico in what was formerly a storage area under a stairwell that has now been converted into a staff room for the schools.
Every inch counts at St. Joseph's Collegiate and Holy Family Academy in Brooks with the joint school's former staff room now hosting a kindergarten class.
“It’s really exciting to be part of the story of these families,” Galeski explains. “Ninety-eight per cent of the Canadian population is descended from immigrants. And somebody played a part in that story generations ago when our families came. And we’re privileged to be able to play that same part in the stories of these new families.”
New Canadian Anna Zynyuk, originally from Ukraine, has taken up the very North American pastime of cheerleading as she settles into her new home of Brooks.
Vice-principal of St. Joseph's Collegiate Ben Galeski.
Galeski has five young children himself, three of whom attend Holy Family. As a parent, he is very pleased his children’s lives are being enriched by the school’s diversity.
“Their birthday parties are phenomenally diverse. Our kids are becoming more and more used to diversity as the norm. Language isn’t a barrier to friendships. I think it is preparing them to be good citizens because Canada is a diverse country, and they are not going to grow up with a fear and mistrust of the other.”
Lero Edwin moved to Brooks five years ago from a refugee camp in Uganda. Her family is by nationality Somali, but Edwin has never been to Somalia. She was born in the camp, and that’s what she knew until she came to Canada.
bmunro@globalraymac.ca gmonro@globalraymac.ca
She says the hardest thing about adjusting to a new culture was getting past the fear she and her parents shared about being in a strange, new land. Being part of St. Joseph’s Collegiate has helped her come out of her shell.
“We were scared, and we just didn’t want to come out because we didn’t speak the language, and we didn’t want to be judged,” says Edwin. “So we had African food and stayed inside eating it. But now it is easy because we got to know people
here, and they’re not judgmental. We can just be ourselves around them.”
Edwin is a provincial class cross- country runner who loves English literature and drama at St. Joseph. Her experiences growing up in a refugee camp have made her want to help people — she wants to be a doctor one day. Edwin is grateful for the life she and her parents now have in Brooks.
“The refugee camp makes me who I am because I understand the people there like when they show them on TV. I understand how they feel like, and I understand what they are going through. So it’s different here in Brooks. I have something. In the refugee camp I didn’t have anything. Here in Brooks, I have a house to go to after school and be with my family.”
St. Joseph’s principal Annicchiarico says it is a wonder to come to work every day and see the emerging reality of rural Alberta reflected in her students’ faces — in faces like Edwin’s and Zynyuk’s.
“Brooks is the beginning of that whole new multi-cultural Alberta which is coming. We’re probably the most impacted rural community, but we’re just slightly ahead of the curve,” says Annicchiarico. “It’s a whole new world in Brooks.”
Looking upon the diversity of faces milling about St. Joseph Collegiate’s halls, that is, if anything, an understatement. ■
Exp nd yo r horizo s...
106 | 2013 REPORT ON SOUTHEAST ALBERTA
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116