Honourable senators, I would like to talk to you about immigration and a moving ceremony I recently attended in Gatineau. Integrating newcomers and asylum seekers is not just about centralized, somewhat impersonal programs. It also takes openness and an effort by the host community. That is exactly what former diplomat Jacques Laberge and his group of volunteers have been doing every year for the past four years by giving BRAVO scholarships of $1,000 and $2,000 to deserving students.

Young students from other countries are rewarded for their academic pursuits and their proficiency in French. They then become ambassadors who inspire those arriving in the Outaouais. Each recipient recounted in French bits and pieces of their background and their challenges.

A young, 18-year-old from Iran, Mohammad Hossein Bokaei Jazi, who arrived in Canada three years ago, listed his many displacements with a great deal of humour. His family first settled in New Brunswick before moving to the Outaouais.

Unwittingly, he found himself in a regular class, even though he spoke very little French. He was lost for the first few months. Now he speaks French well and is about to start university. He played the santour, an Iranian string instrument, for us.

The Afghan sisters Haida and Madina Jabarkhil, both recipients of a BRAVO scholarship one year apart, also made an impression on me. Learning French was particularly difficult for these two young women, who spoke Pashto and Dari in Afghanistan. The pronunciation, the tonal accents and everything else is different in French. However, these two sisters clearly have an iron will. They learned the basics of French in record time. They were welcomed as refugees by Canada because their mother was a journalist. Forced into marriage at the age of 14 to a Taliban, their mother managed to divorce after seven years of physical and mental violence. Madina, who is 19, juggles university studies, volunteer work, and sewing jobs, and she makes all her own clothes. She is proud of her mother who fled a patriarchal society. She already has the vocabulary of a budding feminist. Madina dreams of going into politics here, precisely because of what she experienced in Afghanistan. She saw power being monopolized by the very rich. She came from a family with very few resources, so she has made it her mission in her new country to work for the rights of women and the less fortunate.