Featured Member: Rama Musharbash-Kovacsi

The number of newcomers in Windsor-Essex, Ontario, has grown in recent years, with newcomers from all over the world, including many Syrian and Iraqi refugees. As a School Community Ambassador, Rama is uniquely positioned to combine her lived experience as a newcomer with her role as an educator to support students and families in the school system. Rama works collaboratively with the teachers and families from the moment that the student is enrolled in the school by a settlement worker until they graduate. A critical part of this is staying in touch with English as a Second Language (ESL) support teachers and liaising between the teacher, student, and their family if any issues arise, with the ultimate goal of supporting the student in their English language learning.  

Rama is also active in hosting community agencies at the school to introduce them to the school community and working to increase awareness among teachers about their newcomer students. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated many existing disparities, and Rama observed that firsthand among newcomer students during online learning – it took longer to get many newcomer students online due to lower digital literacy and the familiarity of the programs on their devices.  

Rama spoke about the implications of online learning upon the English skills of newcomer students, “You can never learn a language without being immersed in it, and that’s the disadvantage that all newcomer students have fallen into. At home they speak their first language with their siblings, with their parents, with their friends, their comfort zone, texting, everything on their phone in their own language, and they miss those six hours of school in English where they hear it, where they had to speak it, so it’s just a setback for a lot of kids where it’s not there, and they’re only hearing it on the computer for an hour a day.” 

Rama has found the sense of community and support among her fellow N4 and Saint-Paul University Online Program students to be very valuable, and described the program’s coaching circle as, “amazing...you bring something from your work and you talk about it in front of others and they help you...just an eye-opener to you that there are a lot of people going through this.” She has also enjoyed the ethics and multiculturalism course and frequently thinks about how she can apply that to her work, as well as the opportunities for reflection throughout the program.  

Rama is strongly committed to her community, and “paying it forward” – helping those around her, especially youth, as she was once helped by others. This guiding ethos led her and her husband to open the LaSalle Hangout for Youth, a youth centre in their Windsor-Essex community in 2015, serving 20-25 at-risk youth per day. The Centre provides help with homework, hot meals, counselling, and a safe place to socialize with others.