Member Story

This blog is the latest installment in N4’s Featured Member series, which highlights the diverse work and experiences of N4 members across Canada. 

This blog is the latest installment in N4’s Featured Member series, which highlights the diverse work and experiences of N4 members across Canada.

Dr. Annalee Coakley is the Co-Chair of the N4 Advisory Committee, the Physician Lead of the Mosaic Refugee Health Clinic, and the Medical Director of the Calgary Refugee Health Program in Calgary, Alberta. Dr. Coakley initially became interested in medicine by reading The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance...

Rama Musharbash-Kovacsi is a National Newcomer Navigation Network (N4) member, a student of the N4 and Saint-Paul University Online Program, and School Community Ambassador in the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board. Rama is also a former newcomer to Canada herself – originally from Jordan, Rama moved to the United States as an undergraduate student, and then came to Windsor, Ontario, as a graduate student in Kinesiology, later going on to pursue a teaching career.  

James Swaka, a student of the N4-SPU Online Program, was born in South Sudan and came to Canada as a refugee student through the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) program. Starting in university, James was called upon to be an interpreter of both the language and the experience of people who were coming from refugee camps due to his own lived experience with these camps. He now works as a case manager at Reception House for the Waterloo region, an organization that welcomes and settles government-assisted...

The advantage of Lived Experience in Helping Others

Sunita Gupta is a student of the SPU-N4 Online Program and has lived the newcomer experience several times over. She exemplifies how the impact of lived experience contributes to the development and implementation of newcomer-centric services. Born in Kenya to a family of immigrants, she moved to India where she lived for ten years without citizenship. Afterward, she moved to the United Kingdom where she and her family were British subjects (similar...

rainbowrailroad.org · Toronto, ON

Rainbow Railroad is global not-for-profit organization that helps LGBTQI+ people facing persecution based on their sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics. In a time when there are more displaced people than ever before, LGBTQI+ people are uniquely vulnerable due to systemic, state-enabled homophobia and transphobia. These factors either displace them in their own country or prevent them from escaping harm.

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• The Impact...

rainbowrefugee.com · Vancouver, BC

Rainbow Refugee is a community group that supports people seeking refugee protection in Canada because of persecution based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression (SOGIE) or HIV status.

• It provides support to LGBTQI+ refugees through community engagement and belonging activities, direct support for newcomers, advocacy and education, and a private sponsorship program.
• Its programming and partnerships aim to create communities in BC that offer...

Francois Houde is part of a diverse group of professional graduates of the N4-SPU Online Program. Working as a manager at MAGMA, he shares his experience from the settlement sector. MAGMA (Multicultural Association of Greater Moncton Area) is an organization that provides newcomers with a variety of settlement services. These services include adjusting to local culture and norms, language aid and certification as well as community connections. His team’s work is oriented towards intake and assisting...

Chantal Arsenault, a nurse practitioner working at Horizon Health in New Brunswick, is also a student in the N4 - Saint-Paul University online program. Early in her career, Chantal rarely interacted with newcomers to Canada as the majority of the patients she dealt with were white anglophones or francophones who had lived in New Brunswick for most of their lives. In 2015, upon returning from maternity leave, Chantal learned the physician she had worked with had retired to Quebec, leaving Chantal...