FRIDAY
February 20 2015
Vol. 106 No. 14
OPINION 10
Jessica Barrett is no slacker PACIFIC SPIRIT 12
Death rituals
COMMUNITY CALENDAR 13
Warehouse full of Warhols There’s more online at
vancourier.com WEEKEND EDITION
THE VOICE of VANCOUVER NEIGHBOURHOODS since 1908
Somaya Amiri couldn’t speak or write English just over three years ago. Now she’s won a $100,000 scholarship. PHOTO DAN TOULGOET
FromAfghanrefugeetoscholarshipwinner Tupper student overcame remarkable odds
Cheryl Rossi
crossi@vancourier.com
Sir Charles Tupper secondary student Somaya Amiri has accomplished something only 30 Canadian teens this year can boast. She’s been named a Loran Scholar and will receive up to $100,000 over four years to attend university. Just over three years ago, Amiri couldn’t speak English beyond “hi” and “bye.” She also couldn’t write English script — in Afghanistan she wrote in Dari right to left — and she recalls leaving her Vancouver School Board district placement test blank.
The lack of language skills left Amiri feeling “super nervous” to start her first day of Grade 9 at Tupper in December 2011. But her excitement to attend school superseded any anxiety. “Coming to school, having my notebook, writing stuff down, holding the pencil, little things, it was so joyful,” the 17-year-old told the Courier Tuesday afternoon. Amiri had stopped dreaming she’d be able to attend school when she lived in Afghanistan. Her family had lived far from the closest school in Behsood and she said getting there “was kind of unsafe.” Her older brother attended school, but she learned to read and write at a mosque.
“A lot of girls can’t even go to the mosque and can’t even read and write,” Amiri said. “So I was really fortunate for that.” But that doesn’t mean she didn’t try to go to school, noted social studies department head and teacher Bonnie Burnell, recalling a speech Amiri delivered. Fed up one day, Amiri slid a pencil in her pocket, slipped out the door and followed her brother to school, only to encounter her furious father there. “He takes her home in disgrace,” Burnell said. “But then when she gets home, her mom and other female members of the family are all crying, and she just doesn’t really get it. And then they point out to her that they thought that she might die on the road because she’s a female trying to get education… There
were people around, the Taliban and others, who did not believe in a woman’s education and who would certainly have harmed anyone who had the audacity to do that.” Amiri’s family are Hazara, the least populous of the four main ethnic groups in Afghanistan, and Shia, whereas most of the Muslims in Afghanistan are Sunni. She says they are members of the minority that faces ethnic cleansing. Amiri’s family sold everything and joined her uncle in Pakistan when the situation became intolerable. Life there wasn’t any safer, so Amiri’s father decided they should relocate to Canada. The family arrived as refugees under perilous conditions. Continued on page 6