In between shows, she also teaches autistic children. A portion of the proceeds from her spices will be donated to the village of Tibbi to buy school supplies. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about.
My favourite moment of the day is. My guiltiest pleasure is. My perfect day would be. Living Spicing it up with Bal Arneson The star of the Food Network show Spice Goddess opens up about arranged marriage, education and her proudest moment.
Malcolm Tweedy. I took my no-butter chicken to for him to try and got the book deal. Her rags to riches story is an inspiration. Her journey to becoming everything she is today began a long time ago as a little girl in India. From a small village Tibbi in Punjab cooking in a clay kitchen, she is now a world renowned chef, author, educator and TV personality. Very authentic, warm and most admirable is her engagement of her children in all facets of her life.
Travel, Technology and More…. Skip to content. I accepted rejection. I pushed myself through all those challenges. I didnt want to believe this was going to be my life. When she was a teenager, her uncle arranged her Vancouver marriage.
She moved here, unable to speak any English, and had a daughter, Anoop Virk. She was still a teenager when, with baby in arms, she found refuge in a shelter. My mother told me, Youve brought us so much shame I wish you were dead. It was the last conversation I had with her. Young Bal decided that since she had no family, it was time for a little rebirth of her own. My name was originally Baljit. Bal means strength and jit means winning.
I took the jit off because I felt it wasnt about winning or losing, it was about strength. Working as a housecleaner to earn money, she found her salvation in education, eventually earning a Masters degree. It was while she was working as a teacher in Coquitlam that she wrote her first cookbook. Today, shes seriously considering getting her PhD. During her rise as a food celebrity, Arneson has transformed the scars from such a hurt-filled childhood into roots that burrow deep into her soul.
I tell her that I admire people who are confident without going over to the dark side of being egotistical. But she gives me a different perspective: Ego is good. I had to force myself to be egoistic. I needed the ego within me to get me out of [the culture of subservience] but what do you do with it? I demand Whats my worth? In the business world, your confidence can get you to a place but ego demands.
Your presence should demand the results that you already have in your head. Youd better have ego if youre a woman but you have to have the ability to turn it off and on. John, in the Peace Region of Northeast B. Her awareness of the unique challenges of immigrants allows her to personally assist newcomers in her city.
She also dreams that her art-concept for a Filipino-Canadian Friendship Monument will someday become a reality. Karla Briones arrived in Canada in a U-Haul truck with her family when she was 18, after a long five-day drive from her native country of Mexico.
She and her family lived the struggles most immigrants experience: cultural, language, environmental and job security barriers. She is the founder of KB Consulting, a business consulting and strategy agency for BIPOC and underrepresented entrepreneurs where she and her team help clients launch, grow and scale businesses.
In , she launched the Immigrants Developing Entrepreneurs Academy IDEA , an online platform designed to educate and connect newcomers to the Canadian business ecosystem. Briones is also part of the team of independent business advisors at Invest Ottawa, the local economic development agency. She works with all types of entrepreneurs who are launching, building and scaling businesses. She is a small business columnist for the Ottawa Citizen and serves on the board of directors for the Ottawa Markets and the Ottawa Board of Trade, as well as volunteering as a business mentor for Futurpreneur Canada, the Centre for Social Enterprise Development and other local entrepreneurship community groups.
Guest speaker, lecturer and generous with her advice, Briones is passionate about growing the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Canada and giving back to the country that welcomed her with open arms. She is the lucky mom of two amazing, strong and inspiring humans: Carmen, 9, and Nayeli, 13, who also have their own business! She lovingly instills in them her Mexican roots and encourages them to use their Canadian wings to fly after their biggest dreams.
Her husband and business partner, Shawn, patiently supports, encourages and contributes to the success of it all. Working in multiple jobs helped him finance his education as an English—German translator. This led him to work for government, law firms and real estate brokers. He made the move into land development in , securing a small bank loan to open the Nova Scotia-based company Canadian Pioneer Estates Ltd. It was his vision to bring people together from across the world in friendship and business, thereby building bridges between people.
For this purpose, he created Friends United, a philanthropic initiative to connect Indigenous art and culture with the world. He works closely with embassies around the world to promote Canada, its values, especially with a focus on Indigenous peoples. Bouman built a corporate group of Canadian companies from the ground up, bringing prosperity to Canada and recognition for its Indigenous people. More information is available at friends-united. When Rene Blanco looked at the problem, he saw an opportunity to build a business by helping them to save time and money.
Previously, Blanco worked in Mexican agencies to provide infrastructure and services to rural communities. In , as an international EMBA student, he addressed a social problem within the underserved temporary foreign workers. They have to pay high fees and receive low exchange rates to remit their money back home. Immigrating was integral to her personal journey of transformation after battling life-altering health issues, divorce and other challenges. She is known for her resilience, transparency, connectedness and relational strengths.
Berry has a heart of service and is committed to changing and affecting lives through her work, business and community involvement. This Black immigrant woman is determined to shatter glass ceilings, bridge career gaps and aid other immigrants make their mark and experience positive transformation.
She currently leads the human resource department at Skills for Change and has more than a decade of strategic and operational experience in multiple human resource capacities across various industries. Her passion is most evident in the areas of talent management, learning and development, recruitment, coaching, DEI and employee engagement.
She also provides voluntary support to associations and groups in Jamaica to help prepare students and professionals for a career in Canada. Berry wears many hats heels including that of an entrepreneur. Ida Beltran-Lucila was an accomplished dance artist and arts administrator in the Philippines, bringing a breadth of arts experience and knowledge with her when her family moved to Edmonton, Alberta, in She has also delivered workshops on classical and modern ballet, and Philippine dance, in ballet schools, elementary and high schools, and with senior groups in the effort to promote dance as a recreational, therapeutic and educational tool.
Beltran-Lucila is a driving force in the promotion and development of Philippine art and culture, spearheading a multitude of collaborative projects like the Philippine Arts Festival, Edmonton Filipino Fiesta, Kalinangan and the Learning Table.
She is the director and writer of the documentary Paglalayag: the Philippines to Canada Journey , which chronicles the stories of migration of Filipinos in Edmonton. She is also a regular writer with the Alberta Filipino Journal and was a contributor to other publications in Alberta previously, focusing on arts and culture.
Beltran-Lucila has provided a vision on how arts is a vital force in the development of a person and a community. The majority of her community work is provided on a voluntary basis, as she holds a full-time job with Edmonton Public Schools where she has worked for 12 years now. Lanre Ajayi is a Nigerian-born visual and new media creator who uses his artistic skills to build forward thinking-communities and tell stories through lived experiences.
His artistic projects are a means for educating and entertaining the many shared cultures of Canada. He is responsible for creating platforms to share unique identities through art and cultural activities to promote equity and diversity. His creative leadership skills enable him to relate well with stakeholders at all levels and his enthusiastic spirit has led him to create community initiatives that have gained international recognition. As the founder, artistic and creative director of Ethnik Festivals Association, he dedicates his talents to building connections and opportunities within many communities.
These initiatives include working with traumatized immigrants from war-torn countries and using his arts and crafts skills as therapeutic means to heal wounds inflicted as a result of war, especially in children. These stories have been shared internationally, and the film has been selected as a finalist entry in the Festival del Cinema Di Cefalu in Italy, as well as the SideReel Festival in the United States.
His passion for building safer communities also led him to start a new initiative during the pandemic called Operation Temporarily Adopt A Mailbox Stand. This resulted from an encounter with a mail delivery worker who was afraid to knock and deliver a parcel. Ajayi began by cleaning mailbox stands within his neighbourhood. After recording and sharing this act, it started a ripple effect as people took up the challenge of cleaning mailboxes in their communities.
His acts of service, as well as the resulting ripple effect, led to a provincial government recognition and award for acts of volunteerism during a challenging time. Sidhu differentiates herself in Parliament as someone who is focused on health care and advocating for women.
She is also the chair of the All-Party Caucus on Diabetes. She currently holds the position of vice-chair of the Status of Women Committee. Sidhu is proud to be on the Status of Women Committee, advocating for women in her riding and all across Canada. She introduced Motion in to make November of every year diabetes awareness month. Her goal was to raise national awareness of this disease and its complications.
This was the first step in her fight to end diabetes and continues to be at the forefront of the LetsDefeatDiabetes campaign in Canada. Sidhu has been an advocate for Canadians living with pre-diabetes or diabetes since becoming MP. Sidhu was born in India and immigrated to Canada in She lives in her riding of Brampton South with her husband Gurjit, twin daughters, Arshia and Amrit, and her son, Akash. Tulia Castellanos became the executive director at Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House in early , after having worked in the non-profit sector for 30 years.
She came to Canada in the early s hoping to find a safe place to rebuild her life. She restarted her career in Canada as a recipient of a federal training initiative aimed to retrain social workers with diverse cultural backgrounds to support the increasing number of refugees coming to Canada. She has worked in multiple areas in social services but most of her work has been focused on the management, development and implementation of a broad range of community-based programs aimed to increase individual and community capacity.
Castellanos worked at Family Services of Greater Vancouver for 24 years in multiple capacities. Her last role was director of strategic community engagement, which allowed her to participate in more than 15 collaborative cross-sectorial tables all aimed to improve social conditions in their communities. Then she moved to the Terry Fox Foundation as their national director of operations.
Castellanos is passionate about newcomer families and their struggles in starting a new life. Throughout her time in Canada, she has always been involved in supporting new Canadians in multiple ways with many organizations. She has served on several boards, including Inland Refugee, AIDS Vancouver and Vantage Point, a member-based provincial organization dedicated to strengthening capacity in the non-profit sector.
Subrata Kumar Das, a celebrated author and erudite scholar, well-known organizer and spirited initiator, made history in Bangladesh in the past, is making history at present in Canada. He has earned respect for his strong voice against discrimination and injustice. Das has not only written some outstanding books, but also encouraged many Bengalis to write books themselves. Since his arrival in Canada in , he has organized and joined a huge number of cultural, literary, social and religious activities.
Since , Das has been anchoring for a community television named NRB. During the COVID lockdown year, Das has encouraged and entertained the whole Bengali community across Canada to keep up their spirit through virtual shows.
Now he is a household name among the Bengali diaspora. Two years after his arrival in Canada, Das started reading the large quantum of Canadian literature, churning the sea of it, and grasped the essence of Canadianness that enabled him to write a superb book on CanLit, the first Bengali-language one on the genre.
Toronto International Festival of Authors have, for the first time, included Bengali language and literature in their list in and selected Das to represent Bengali literature in that international forum.
Das not only participated himself, but also included 10 more Bengali writers to take part in that gala ceremony. Salima Neek Gilani was born and raised in Thailand and immigrated to Canada in After graduating from the University of Waterloo, she embarked on a career in Canadian banking. When she realized that the ethnic food market is underserved, she set on a mission to make the authentic taste of her home country Thailand more readily available to Canadians.
Gilani launched her small business, Palette Foods in Gilani is committed to contributing to causes she resonates with in Canada. She has also served on the board of directors for Peel Seniors Link whose mission is to advance care excellence in the community by helping seniors age at home with dignity.
Gilani mentors numerous colleagues and students keen to learn from her success. Country of Origin: Colombia. Murillo immigrated to Canada in with a dream in mind: to merge her entrepreneurial background, her MBA training, and her passion to help her community. She has been working with the Latin American world in Canada, understanding its needs and bringing the community together with a beautiful project called Latincouver, a non-profit organization that has organized more than events in culture and business.
She also created Mirrai, a boutique agency that provides a full spectrum of marketing, consulting and communications services. In Latincouver, her achievements include organizing the recognized cultural festival, Carnaval del Sol, which attracts more than 80, people; the Inspirational Latin Awards, a celebration for recognizing influential Latinos in BC; and ExpoPlaza Latina seminars that address business relationships between Canada and Latin America.
Latincouver supports entrepreneurs through the Latin-Canadian Business Network. During the pandemic, Murillo innovated and changed her way of working to hold 65 events for the Carnaval del Sol. Organizers formed a partnership with more than a dozen local restaurants and artists to support them during these challenging times.
MyLatinStore is a place where entrepreneurs can feel inspired and motivated. Muhtadi Thomas immigrated to Canada from Trinidad and Tobago in He has performed extensively, both nationally and internationally.
However, much of his career has been devoted to teaching the art of drumming in community arts programs, schools and community centres. Thomas has also received awards from Music Africa and the Town of Markham for his contribution to the artistic music community.
The annual Harry Jerome Award celebrates the world-class excellence achieved by outstanding Black Canadians, not only for their talents and achievements, but also for their community-minded spirit.
Thomas has also been a music judge for Caribana and other events. In addition, he has the distinguished honour of being the only artist to work with Art Starts Neighbourhood Cultural Centre from their inception in Thomas is well known as the founder and artistic director of the highly successful Muhtadi International Drumming Festival, which celebrated the drum, its universality as an art form and its presence in all cultures.
The festival ran for 20 years and featured drumming groups of all ages and skills that display the diverse cultural traditions and drumming styles from all over the world.
Thomas is now a retired musician enjoying life with his family. She has produced multiple Nigerian Indigenous movies, which have currently garnered hundred of thousands of views on YouTube.
Sadiq-Soneye is a mentor to many foreign-trained lawyers, who have migrated from their countries of origin to start the licensing process in Canada as immigrants. She has worked as a civil servant in Nigeria and also worked with Ontario Public Service since she landed in Canada.
She graduated from both diplomas while writing the lawyer licensing exams — NCA and Ontario bar exams. Sadiq-Soneye is the first born and has two younger siblings who also migrated to Canada with their families. She is married to a very supportive IT professional and has three daughters. Her father is a lawyer with his firm in Nigeria; it was easy following in his footsteps.
Banker; founder, UnstoppableMe. CEO of the most famous and oldest coffee company in Mexico, Miguel Abascal travelled around the world representing Mexican coffee until he decided to follow his dream to immigrate to Canada.
He never thought his first five years were going to be a nightmare. Abascal landed in Toronto in and his first job was as a coffee server in Tim Hortons. After his confidence crashed, he secured several survival jobs over the years trying to figure out why his success formula that worked before was not working in Canada.
His luck started to change in when he discovered the power of mentoring and was able to land a bank teller role at TD. Within a short period of time, he got promoted several times, and finally, in he got a role within his expertise and skill level. In , Abascal also founded a volunteer-based organization called UnstoppableMe. The name UnstoppableMe came after listening to countless stories of newcomers who were facing similar challenges after arriving in Canada and never giving up.
Abascal and the amazing group of unstoppable volunteers have helped more than newcomers. Abascal has received the Volunteer Toronto Legacy Award and the TD Vision in Action award for his outstanding contributions to the bank and to society. He also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in to bring awareness to the impact of underemployment in our society. Today, Abascal is living his Canadian dream working for Scotiabank helping Canadians to achieve their savings goals. He is an avid mentor, speaker and beekeeper who enjoys hiking with his wife and son and, strangely enough, he loves the Canadian winters.
Born and raised in rural Mexico, he came to Canada alone at just 22 with the hope of finding fulfilment as his true self in a tolerant and accepting society. Adapting to his new life in Edmonton, he tackled linguistic and professional disadvantages common to adult immigrants.
Through his experiences, Flores Aguilar learned the value of perseverance and the supportiveness of his chosen home of Canada. Unable to speak English upon his arrival in December , he navigated the free resources available to him to successfully master the language, borrowing countless ESL books and studiously attending ESL classes at churches, libraries and educational facilities.
After many rejections, he found that he could not rely on his Mexican credentials in engineering and project management to enter the Canadian workforce. Flores Aguilar is proud of his Mexican roots and sees himself as a cultural ambassador in Alberta, having volunteered as a language instructor to teach his native Spanish to Edmontonians. He also volunteers with professional organizations in communications and public relations, including the Canadian Public Relations Society and the International Association of Business Communicators.
A longtime Brampton resident, McDonald has been actively involved within the Peel community since Trustee McDonald works tirelessly to help each child realize their full potential and works with the community to support student success for all students and dismantle systemic discrimination. When McDonald is not dismantling anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism within education, she can be seen around the Region of Peel working to make Brampton the best place to raise a family.
McDonald is a wife, mother and a dedicated volunteer. McDonald holds a bachelor of science from McGill University and a post-graduate diploma in the theory of teaching practices from the University of Guelph and a PhD from Mommy University as the dedicated mother of four changemakers!
Born and raised on the beautiful island of Jamaica, Karla Laird immigrated to Canada in the fall of Her years of study and qualifications as a lawyer were not directly transferrable, but undaunted by the uphill battle ahead, she restarted her career, landing her first job as a personal assistant. In less than four years, she pivoted her legal background and communications experience, and built a career as an expert in consumer education and marketplace awareness in B.
She is currently the senior manager for media and communications at the Better Business Bureau Serving Mainland BC, and is the first Black woman to operate as their brand ambassador and media spokesperson.
Laird has reported on countless marketplace investigations, authored hundreds of news releases and articles around fraud prevention, and has been interviewed by reporters and media networks across the country.
She uses her platform to educate Canadians, especially new immigrants, about unethical businesses, scams, fraudulent schemes and also provides tips and best practices for both businesses and consumers.
An accomplished speaker and presenter, Laird also connects with several immigrant, community and business groups across B. An advocate in every sense of the word, Laird is also the president of the Jamaican Canadian Cultural Association of B. She leads a board of five directors, focused on promoting Jamaican culture, supporting the Jamaican immigrant community in the province and establishing collaborative linkages with other groups across the country.
Laird was handpicked as one of 20 mentors across B. She holds a bachelor of laws degree with honours and a graduate diploma with distinction in public relations from the University of the West Indies and is currently pursuing her masters in intercultural and international communication at Royal Roads University. Hassan Wadi, born in Saudi Arabia came to Canada at the age of eight. His parents sacrificed their careers, families and friends for the sake of a better future for their kids.
It was a big sacrifice and change that he was willing to make for his kids. This fueled Wadi to work hard and become successful, to give back to his family and make them proud. Since then, Wadi has become a professional speaker, fitness expert, entrepreneur and a philanthropist. As a speaker he has emceed events with up to 60, people in attendance, has spoken at schools, events and conferences, and is a speech competition award-winning speaker. He was able to accomplish this while maintaining his full-time job with the City of Mississauga and his charitable work with Human Concern International.
As a fitness expert, he has been recognized as one of the Top 10 Fitness professionals in Canada from Canfitpro and is currently a fitness supervisor for the City of Mississauga. Founder of the Equal Chance Foundation and recipient of the prestigious Order of Ottawa, Gwen Madiba is a human rights advocate and international award-winning speaker who has dedicated her life to empowering women, young girls, youth around the world and advocating for homeless individuals and families in Canada.
Madiba transformed the adversity that she faced as an immigrant in Canada into advocacy, to not only support vulnerable members of the community, but to also equip them with powerful tools and resources to break barriers that they face in society. In , she officially launched Equal Chance. Through Equal Chance she developed essential programs for the most vulnerable people in the community.
The successful advocacy led to the inclusion of international students to the CERB program. In , she made history at the international pageant, Mrs. Universe, becoming the first Black woman to pass the top five and land in the top 2. She was able to bring her crown in her native country, Gabon and her adoptive country, Canada. Through this fund, they have been able to enroll more than 80 children in school over the past year.
She is currently using her voice to powerfully advocate for homeless families, children and individuals in the City of Ottawa. Madiba has not only helped bring awareness to the unfortunate situation of homeless people, but she is ensuring that on their journey toward finding permanent housing, they have access to essential resources and services, and that they never feel alone. Country of Origin: Poland.
Like many Pols in the s, Ewa Karczewska left the country governed by communist administration to look for better opportunities and, in , landed in Montreal. Who would have thought that almost 27 years later, she would still be working for the organization? But this is where she is today. Throughout her career, Karczewska has been actively involved in the work of the BC settlement language sector by serving on the number of province-wide and regional committees and boards, including LISTN board of directors or City of Coquitlam Multiculturalism Advisory Committee.
Karczewska has been dedicated to supporting newcomers to BC with access to affordable programs and services that would assist in their settlement and integration process. Her overarching principle is to empower the clients she works with, so they can help themselves and spread goodwill to others.
She works with everyone around her to help foster action, positive result and social equality. Karczewska is also a devoted mother and wife. She has two adult children and lives with her husband in Surrey, BC. Edsel Mutia and his wife emigrated from the Philippines in , after reading about Canadian nursing shortages, and came to Toronto expecting to continue his career as an RN. In fact, he was told that he needed another four-year degree just to be eligible to take his registration exam.
Despite this once-desperate position, he established himself as a leader in Ontario nursing. Mutia grew up in a village on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. Like thousands of Filipinos before him, nursing provided the opportunity to find financial stability working abroad.
At the understaffed and underfunded hospital, he was often responsible for up to 50 patients at a time. It forced him to be resourceful and adaptable. Though his job had its perks, his personal life was changing. He and his wife, Tess, decided to start their family in Canada. It can take years for IENs international educated nurses to obtain registration in Ontario. In , the same year he applied for registration, the College of Nurses of Ontario CNO received nearly 1, applications from internationally educated RNs.
Morris Siu-Chong Memorial Award. The journey toward scientific discovery is often long and winding. His discovery of a new class of drugs Navacims for the treatment for autoimmune diseases took a giant step forward in when Parvus Therapeutics, a company which he founded in , secured a major license agreement that enabled the company to develop these drugs.
He was born in Manresa, Spain. While growing up in a small farmhouse, he developed a deep sense of wonder about mother nature. He was diagnosed with a major autoimmune disease at age 15, an event that stole his adolescence but shaped the focus of his curiosity. He studied medicine at the University of Barcelona while competing internationally in water polo. He pursued a residency in immunology and simultaneously completed a PhD, also in immunology. He developed two other autoimmune diseases in the meantime.
In , he left Spain to pursue post-doctoral research training at the University of Minnesota. He was recruited to the University of Calgary as an assistant professor in He initially struggled to get funding for his ideas and his career teetered on the brink of collapse.
He persevered. These ideas paved the way for the discovery of Navacims 13 years later. Navacims are nanoparticles engineered to halt autoimmune diseases without suppressing the normal functioning of the immune system. He founded Parvus as a vehicle for bench-to-bedside translation of Navacims.
Parvus is now a biopharmaceutical company developing nanomedicines to halt or reverse the autoimmune diseases affecting humankind. He has authored more than publications, holds 92 patents and has given more than lectures. In , he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She is the current director for the Career Mentorship Program at Edmonton Region Immigrant Employment Council ERIEC where she leads the team that matches job-ready, foreign-trained professionals with established professionals in the Edmonton area in a mentor-mentee relationship.
In her time at ERIEC, she has helped connect more than mentees with mentoring, networking and career opportunities.
0コメント