As bright yellow tents popped up around Marmot Meadows, Sept. 19, a 16-month-old baby crawled through the maze of tent pegs and guylines, checking out the scene. That night would be her first time sleeping outdoors, and it would be the first time for her father and mother, as well.
The Seyida family was in Jasper for just that reason. They were part of the annual Learn to Camp program organized by Edmonton’s Catholic Social Services, in collaboration with Parks Canada, Alberta Parks, Mountain Equipment Co-op and the Junior Forest Wardens.
Abdurazak Seyida moved to Edmonton with his young family on March 28. For the last three years, he and his wife had been living in Egypt, after fleeing their home country of Ethiopia.
“I was an asylum-seeker in Egypt and I stayed as a refugee for three years. Then I came to Canada,” he said while sitting cross-legged amongst shoots of tall golden grass.
“Before I never think there was a warm season in Canada. I used to only see the wintertime and when I came to Canada, the weather is changing from season to season. That’s very interesting to me,” he said with a hearty laugh.
Since arriving in the country, Seyida has been taking ESL courses to improve his English listening, speaking, reading and writing skills and he is hoping to eventually go back to university. To help him accomplish those goals, he has been working with Catholic Social Services, which has a contract with the Canadian Immigration Centre to help new Canadians with their resettlement needs.
That help includes programs like Learn to Camp, which is designed to not only teach the 50 participants to set up tents, start campfires, respect nature and value national parks, it’s organized to create friendships between new Canadians, some of whom have been in the country for a few years and others who have been here for as little as two weeks.
“We make a mixed group,” explained Frank Bessai, of Catholic Social Services, noting that people in the program come from the Philippines, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and Burma, just to name a few countries. “We try to make it with a range of different people, with different kinds of settlement needs.
“We like to mix it with families from the same culture that have been here a little bit longer, so brand new families can see it’s possible [to make a life here].
“And one of our objectives, for sure, is to show the beauty of Canada and to give these people a positive vibe. For example, those people who have been here for two weeks, we bring them out here at the beginning of their time in Canada and it should set a pretty positive stage, so that they’re able to look at our country—which is now their country—in a positive light.”
That positive light shone brightly over Jasper, as the participants learned about camping gear, wildlife, and the importance of fire on the park’s landscape, Saturday morning, and as they visited Maligne Canyon and Lake Edith that afternoon.
Seyida, who could be seen laughing and smiling all weekend long, said his time in Jasper brought him great happiness.
“For people like us, who have bad experiences back home and who left their country for fear of something and we come to this kind of country, it’s very good for us. We renew our minds.
“We are very happy. The people and how they welcomed us—I’m very happy about it.”
Nicole Veerman
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