SPOTLIGHT
TO CANADA, WITH LOVE— AND A DESIRE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE Mohawk College first helped Maria de Castro Santos De Tina ’15 with her English skills, then helped her train for a second career. By Mary Teresa Bitti
M
aria de Castro Santos De Tina ’15 and her now husband, Paolo, have a modern day ’how we met’ love story. They were first introduced to one another by a mutual friend when Paolo, a Canadian living in Stoney Creek, visited
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Maria’s hometown of Fortaleza. “Our friend asked me to show Paolo around the city, but I didn’t speak English,“ says Maria. “So I ended up using Google Translate to communicate with him.“ The couple married in August 2010, one month after Maria received her master’s
degree in Science from Fundação Antônio Prudente/Escola Cearense de Oncologia, two hospitals located in São Paulo and Fortaleza. Although licensed to work as a physiotherapist in Brazil, Maria did not have the opportunity to practise in her home country as she moved to Stoney Creek in 2011. Prior to leaving Brazil, she had been working as an elementary and high school music teacher for 10 years and was looking for a change in her career. “I felt there was something missing,“ says Maria. “I wanted
