Spotlight on Success
Each of our Jumpstart clients has a unique story — professionally and personally — involving trials and tribulations, celebrations, and successes.
Our Spotlight series shines a light on the ways that refugee talent has accessed our services, and how this has ultimately uplifted them in their career journey to benefit workplaces, communities, and homes around the country.
Nobody chooses to be a refugee.
From one day to the next your life goes from living a completely normal existence — working a job you love, surrounded by family, friends, in a community that you understand, trust, and connect with — to being catapulted into a new world completely beyond your understanding or control. This was exactly the case for 38-year-old Sooma Aslami from Afghanistan.
Before August 15, 2021 — a day that will forever live in the minds and hearts of Afghanis — Sooma’s life was predictable, orderly, enriching, and meaningful. Within moments it turned chaotic, lost, uncertain, and at times utterly helpless. Less than a week after the Taliban returned to power in Kabul, Sooma was evacuated on a plane out of her home country. She left her friends, family, job, culture, and all that she had ever known behind.
“I went from living with my husband in Kabul, working as a free and independent woman who was the Associate Coordination Officer at the United Nations’ Office of the Chief of Staff, to living out of my one small backpack with a few items of clothes and laptop,” says Sooma, who spent her first month in Canada living out of a hotel near Toronto’s Pearson airport. “Those initial months, especially, proved extremely hard for me.”
After arriving in Canada, Sooma, like many refugees wanted to get her feet on the ground and find her way with a job, community, and friends. But this process often takes time, as there are often multiple emotions and internal challenges that run alongside the more practical needs and necessities of building a new life in a foreign land.
“I was an Afghan that never wanted to leave my country,” says Sooma. “As a survivor (after the war), I often felt guilty about having left those behind and now having access to so many things here in Canada that all those Afghani women don’t have access to back home. I really felt bad, and I was constantly asking myself why me?”
It took Sooma a few months to accept her new life in Canada, but once she did, everything changed.
“I remember that day well,” says Sooma reflecting on the moment she decided she had to take charge of her new life in Canada. “I had been so depressed for months, then one day I just got up out of bed. I remember looking out the window in downtown Toronto and deciding there and then – thanks to my husband – that I wasn’t going to give up. Within 10 days I had learned how to use the bus, take the metro, and within a month we started looking for a new home.”
It was also around this time, in early November 2021, that Sooma met staff members from Jumpstart Refugee Talent. They were doing intake interviews at the hotel Sooma was staying at in downtown Toronto. Sooma shared her resume with Jumpstart, who then followed up with the Canadian nongovernmental organization Journalist for Human Rights (JHR) who had a job opening that fit Sooma’s profile.
Within a few days, Sooma was contacted by Zein Almoghraby, Director of International Programs and Growth at Journalist for Human Rights, interviewed, and then hired as Senior Project Manager.
“I was working on a project that was essentially a one-million-dollar, six-month contract, supported by the Canadian government,” says Sooma. “Our job was to successfully evacuate over 900 Afghani to Canada by the end of March 2022. And we did. We then helped provide more than 600 of those incoming refugees with PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) training, including journalists.”
With the success of this JHR project, Sooma’s contract was extended for another full year. Between March 2023 until present day (April 2024), JHR and partners continued to evacuate more than 1,300 Afghani people to Pakistan on behalf of Global Affairs Canada. These milestones were not only meaningful on a global scale, but also on a very personal scale for Sooma.
“It wasn’t until I accepted my new life here in Canada that I was able to relate to Afghanistan again. I began to understand that my situation here is much better. That insight gave me great peace,” says Sooma. “It also helped that I work for an organization (JHR) that has allowed me to feel connected and happy in what I do. After achieving each stage and successful step forward on the ground in these projects, I am filled with good feelings. I always look at my work this way – what is our achievement? Answering this question makes me feel really proud at the end of the day.”
When asked about how Sooma stayed and continues to stay positive, she admits it hadn’t been easy.
“I remember a lot of negative talk and feelings going around in the beginning from other people in my refugee community who had lived different experiences in Afghanistan before coming to Canada. This really affected me,” she says. “People were always talking about their negative experiences and how I would have to take any type of job just to get by. But when I spoke with Jumpstart at the hotel, back in November 2021, they reassured me that this isn’t always the case for refugees. They assured me that I had skills, experience and knowledge that could be used and be of value here in Canada. That comforted me a lot. I would tell any refugee the same thing – you have to believe in yourself and in your abilities.”
Today, just over two and half years since arriving to Canada, Sooma says her life in Toronto is very fulfilling.
“It feels like home to me now,” she says. “I never expected it to be this way, but now when I walk outside and see so many different people and cultures living side-by-side and each keeping their cultural identity it makes me feel so good.”
Moving forward, and now with a University of Toronto Project Management Professional Certificate under her belt – on top of two master’s degrees in Afghanistan – Sooma says she is looking towards doing a third Masters in Business Administration.
“I am a person with big dreams,” she says. “I want to try my best to enhance my experiences and then to pass this experience on to other people as a positive role model.”
Sooma may have never chosen the path that she is now on, but her determination, commitment, and passion will ensure this path leads towards bettering the lives of both herself and those around her.
Learn more about our Refugee Talent Hub Program, where we support newly settled refugees in overcoming hiring barriers and securing meaningful employment. We equally support employers so they can easily and efficiently source and recruit refugee talent.