Using Music to Celebrate the “Magic of the Middle East”

On December 3, 2011, the Mosaic Institute gathered together 200 friends both new and old to celebrate the ability of music to bridge divides and to forge new understandings between people and communities. This important fundraising event, known as “Music of the Mosaic: Celebrating the Magic of the Middle East,” raised more than $70,000 to support the work of the Mosaic Institute.

The evening started out with an elegant cocktail reception in the Conservatory Theatre with background music provided by Glenn Gould School graduate Mr. Younggun Kim. After brief words of greeting from Mosaic Executive Director John Monahan and Event Committee Chair Susie Kololian, the two co-Presidents of the “UofMosaic” chapter at Toronto’s York University, Maxa Sawyer and Sara Zeitoun, galvanized everyone’s attention with their personal stories of working to encourage inter-community dialogue and cooperation between Arab and Jewish students on campus. Everyone was impressed by their eloquence and by their strength of commitment to finding peaceful solutions to longstanding disputes. Soon thereafter, Canada’s Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the Hon. Jason Kenney, arrived at the reception and engaged with a number of Mosaic friends, volunteers and UoMosaic students.

Guests were then ushered into the majestic Koerner Hall, where they were treated to a transportive, two-part concert featuring Egyptian-Canadian singer-musician Maryem Tollar and Israeli singer-songwriter Chava Alberstein. Drawing on their respective Middle Eastern roots, the performers reminded everyone of the unique ability of music to heal hearts and to reinforce our common humanity.

Following the concert, a dessert and champagne reception was held. After brief remarks by Mervon Mehta of the Royal Conservatory, and a touching toast and tribute by Mosaic Chairman Vahan Kololian, the evening concluded when Mosaic Peace Patron Eve Lewis accepted a special posthumous award recognizing the contributions made to the Mosaic Institute by her late husband, Paul Oberman.

York Students Connected to the Middle East Compare Perspectives on Identity

York students gathered for dialogue on January 16.

On Monday, January 16, more than 35 students with personal, family or community connections to the Middle East gathered at Toronto’s York University to participate in another session of the year-long inter-community dialogue about the Middle East that was organized by the university’s “UofMosaic” chapter. The event, entitled Middle Eastern Identity in a Canadian Cultural Mosaic, was a discussion about how young people with connections to the Middle East perceive their own identities as both Canadians and as people who belong to diasporic communities.  The evening featured presentations by Omar Alghabra, former MP and Opposition Critic for Citizenship and Immigration, and Professor Nergis Canefe of York University.

The participating students were notable for the wide variety of ethnocultural and faith-based communities to which they belong. As they shared a snack of hummus, pita and veggies, Professor Canefe provided a panoramic overview of both the Middle Eastern and Jewish diasporas in Canada, outlining their various cultural, religious, and ethnic dimensions. Mr. Alghabra took a more personal approach to the topic, and recounted his own story as a Syrian-born, Saudi-raised immigrant to Canada, his personal sense of identity as a Canadian of Middle Eastern background, and how that identity informed his decision to pursue a life of public service. After the panelists’ presentations, the students launched into full dialogue mode, openly sharing their differing insights and points of view on what it means to be a “hyphenated” Canadian, the meaning and promise of multiculturalism in this country, and the way in which differing notions of identity can be all-too-easily manipulated to divide Canadians through “identity politics.”

For the first time, two student leaders, Sara Zeitoun and Maxa Sawyer, Co-Presidents of UofMosaic@York University, moderated a UofMosaic session, under the supervision and guidance of Noel Badiou, York’s Director of the Centre for Human Rights.  They both did a superb job.

The UofMosaic@ York University will hold its last session of the year on February 13^th, when the topic will be Bridging Gaps for Peace and Development. Anticipation is also growing for our upcoming “Citizen Summit: Young Canadians’ Day of Dialogue for Peace in the Middle East”, which will be held on March 16^th.  That all-day event will bring together participants of our three UofMosaic chapters at York, Ryerson, and the University of Toronto to discuss current issues in the Middle East and the role that they, as young Canadians, can play in making peace a reality for people across the region.

The “UofMosaic” (www.uofmosaic.ca) is an initiative of The Mosaic Institute (www.mosaicinstitute.ca) to encourage Canadian university students to confront old conflicts, become purveyors of peace on campus, and help strengthen their fellow Canadians’ commitment to fostering peace, pluralism and good government around the world –starting right here at home.  The work of the “UofMosaic” is made possible by the generosity of private and corporate donors.  Special recognition is due to the BMO Financial Group for its multi-year support of this groundbreaking initiative.

For more information on the UofMosaic Initiative, contact Lorenzo Vargas at lv@mosaicinstitute.ca.

UofMosaic Students @ UofT Build Bridges to Peace and Pluralism

On January 13, 2012, the UofMosaic student chapter at the University of Toronto, held its second event of the year as part of their ongoing “UofMosaic Middle East Dialogue Series”. The event, entitled The Path to Pluralism: Bridging Community Divides Through Dialogue, featured Susan Davis, former Executive Vice-President of the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA), and Raja Khouri, former President of the the Canadian Arab Federation. Clifton van der Linden moderated the session.

The two guest speakers began by providing a brief overview of the general state of the relationship between the Jewish and Arab communities in Toronto. They they proceeded to describe their current efforts with the Arab Jewish Dialogue Group, a Toronto-based initiative that has been meeting for the past three years with an eye to trying to improve the relationship between these two communities. The session became even more interesting when many of the more than 25 students in attendance began sharing their own experiences navigating Arab-Jewish tensions as young people with strong connections to the Middle East. It was clear to all that the very session in which they were participating was itself an excellent example of the potential for inter-community dialogue, which most agreed was of fundamental importance to both strengthening pluralism in Canada and eventually promoting similar principles across the Middle East.

“We were very happy with the number of students who attended our session and what they had to say; we put a lot of effort into reaching out to students from various ethnocultural clubs on campus, and many of them are here today. We are now really looking forward to our next session,” said Ioana Sendoiu, Co-President of the UofMosaic@theUniversityofToronto.

The UofMosaic chapter at the University of Toronto will have its next dialogue session on February 10^th.  The event will feature a discussion on how international development efforts, both from institutional and grassroots points of view, can make an important contribution to the achievement of peace in the Middle East. The February session will also build momentum for the Mosaic Institute’s upcoming “Citizen Summit”, a day-long conference on March 16 focused on the current and future prospects for peace in the Middle East. Confirmed speakers to date include such renowned experts as Michael Bell, Margaret MacMillan, Marie-Joelle Zahar, Derek Penslar, and Daniel Levy. For more information, please visit our website www.uofmosaic.ca, or contact Lorenzo Vargas, UofMosaic Program Coordinator, at lv@mosaicinstitute.ca.

L. Vargas

Canada and Sri Lanka: A New Kind of Diaspora Politics

 

Natale Dankotuwage*

Jothi Shanmugam*

Recently, the Globe & Mail’s Campbell Clark reported on how Prime Minister Harper was causing consternation among his fellow Commonwealth leaders because of his government’s increasing willingness to criticize the human rights record of the government of Sri Lanka [“Harper’s Stand on Sri Lanka is Not Just Cricket,” Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011]. A few weeks earlier, Mr. Campbell had reported that Mr. Harper had threatened to “boycott the 2013 Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka if that government doesn’t show accountability for human-rights abuses and take steps to reconcile with the Tamil minority (“In policy shift, Stephen Harper presses Sri Lanka on human rights”, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2011).

As Mr. Clark noted at the time, the Canadian government’s new boldness in criticizing Sri Lanka’s tainted human rights record reflected “a mix of diaspora politics and foreign-policy principles [that] will have implications abroad and at home with a long-frustrated Tamil-Canadian community.” A question that arises, however, is whether “diaspora politics” and “Canadian foreign-policy principles” must necessarily exist in tension with one another, or whether they might align into one, integrated whole.

The term “diaspora politics” actually takes on multiple meanings where Canadians of Sri Lankan background are concerned. On the one hand, it can refer to the complex web of intra-community dynamics and issue-specific alliances and divisions that exist within and across the broader Sri Lankan community. On the other hand, it can simply refer to the significant size and increasing degree of political sophistication and participation by the Sri Lankan diaspora in the Canadian political system. Any political party would be naïve not to pay heed to so large and so politicized a group of Canadians.

With a population of 200,000 or more, those in Canada’s Tamil community are by far the largest diaspora group in Canada with its origins in Sri Lanka. A fraction of that number of Canadians is of Sinhalese background. By contrast, in Sri Lanka itself, Tamils represent around only 20% of the population, with the majority Sinhala community dominating the country’s government, military, and public institutions.

As a result of the disproportionate size of the Tamil community within Canada’s Sri Lankan diaspora, it is often assumed that “diaspora politics” involve paying specific heed to the concerns expressed by those of Tamil background exclusively, which – it is also assumed – are irreconcilable with those of Sinhalese or other backgrounds.

However, as young women of Sri Lankan background – one Tamil, the other Sinhalese – we would like to suggest a re-thinking of those assumptions.

We both readily acknowledge that relations among the various communities of Sri Lanka who now call Canada home understandably intensified during the final days of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009. At the time, the prospect for reconciliation between Canadians of Tamil background and those from Sinhalese or Muslim Sri Lankan backgrounds seemed unfathomable. The Tamil community was loud and unrelenting in its call for the Canadian government to respond to what they perceived as a genocide against the Tamil people by the Sinhala-dominated government in Sri Lanka. Defenders of the government of Sri Lanka, though smaller in number, publicly decried the acts of terrorism perpetrated against civilian targets in Sri Lanka by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (“Tamil Tigers”). Tensions heightened with stories of inter-community violence in suburban Toronto, the provocative use by some street protesters of the Tamil Tiger flag, and the distribution of hate messages in all directions using social media tools.

During this time, we and a small group of Tamil, Sinhalese and Muslim youth came together seeking to find common, Canadian ground among our communities. Our goal was to engage in constructive dialogue focused on ways to promote reconciliation and development in Sri Lanka and help rebuild the country where many of us and our parents had been born. Yet when we approached own community organizations to undertake such a project, we were turned down and advised to drop the plan for our own safety. 
Fortunately, through the efforts of The Mosaic Institute, we ultimately succeeded in launching a two-year “Young Canadians’ Peace Dialogue on Sri Lanka” in the summer of 2009.

After spending several months drafting a statement of “Guiding Values” which would set the rules of engagement for our future public discussions, we assembled about 100 like-minded young Canadians of Tamil, Sinhalese and Muslim Sri Lankan background to learn about each other and to try and agree on a constructive course forward both for our relationships here in Canada, and for our families still living in Sri Lanka. Our views of the geopolitics of Sri Lanka were at times widely divergent, but we were all convinced that reconciliation between our communities here in Canada was imperative if we as Canadians wanted to have the credibility to promote peace, pluralism and democracy for all the people of Sri Lanka.

As participants, we openly shared experiences of loss, grievances, and hope for the future of a better Sri Lanka for all people. Some of us also participated in meetings with senior Canadian and Sri Lankan civil servants, diplomats, and academics, in order to better understand their different perspectives on the challenges to achieving meaningful reconciliation in Sri Lanka.

Our Peace Dialogue revealed to us and to all our fellow participants that the pursuit for reconciliation and the strengthening of true democracy in Sri Lanka are not the exclusive domain of Canadians with Tamil backgrounds. These concerns are shared by many of those of Sinhalese, Muslim or other ethnocultural backgrounds. Moreover, amongst these critically engaged youth, violence and extremism were wholeheartedly rejected in favour of a more inclusive and peaceful approach to achieving political change in Sri Lanka.

In the end, we drafted and submitted a set of policy recommendations to the Governments of both Canada and Sri Lanka. We also formed ourselves into an ongoing fundraising organization called Build Change (www.buildchange.ca), under whose banner we are now working with the Canadian Rotarian Water Foundation to help build residential water wells for the families of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Vanni region of northeastern Sri Lanka. With the encouragement of Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, a “Reconciliation Tour” of Sri Lanka is also in the planning stage.

In sum, through our Peace Dialogue, we have been engaging in a new kind of “diaspora politics” that are wholly consistent with Canada’s foreign policy principles. Rather than holding on to entrenched views imported from the country that our parents had left for the promise of a better life in Canada, we have been working together to try and identify common strategies for supporting all the people of Sri Lanka in their efforts to rebuild their country. In that effort, we have been inspired by the example of peace-focused civil society organizations in Sri Lanka and by officials of Canada’s own Department of Foreign Affairs to help advance a vision of peace and pluralism for Sri Lanka that is reflective of the best of Canada’s core values.

Given our close connections back to the people of Sri Lanka and our shared commitment to living out such values, the diverse members of our community here in Canada –Tamils, Sinhalese, Muslims and others among them – have a tremendous opportunity to demonstrate to the Government and people of Sri Lanka how reconciliation can be achieved and pluralism can be practiced.

*  Jothi Shanmugam is a senior undergraduate student of Peace & Conflict Studies and Criminology at the University of Toronto and a former Mosaic Intern. Natale Dankotuwage is a senior undergraduate student of Political Science at the University of Toronto. Both have served on the Steering Committee of the “Young Canadians’ Peace Dialogue on Sri Lanka”, convened by the Mosaic Institute in partnership with the Trudeau Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies at the Munk School for Global Affairs.

The UofMosaic Begins Dialogue on the Middle East at York University

The Mosaic Institute’s UofMosaic program convened its first dialogue event of the school year at York University on October 3rd, 2011. The topic of discussion was the “Arab Spring” and its likely influence, if any, on the prospect of a comprehensive peace between Arabs and Israelis in the Middle East. The event was a great success as 25 York University students engaged in a constructive and respectful conversation about the effects of the ongoing uprisings in the Arab world. York University Professor of History Thabit Abdullah and Toronto Star journalist Jayme Poisson served as the lead panelists for the event, which was moderated by Noel Badiou, York’s Director of Human Rights.  The Mosaic Institute’s Executive Director, John Monahan, opened the dialogue with words of welcome.

This session at York University is the first of many that will be held across three different universities for the 2011-12 school year. UofMosaic has planned a year-long series of sessions focused on geopolitical issues in the Middle East, with three or four sessions being organized by each of our student chapters at York University, the University of Toronto and Ryerson University. Topics will range from Canada’s connections to the Middle East to the role of the media in covering the region.

“The inaugural event of U of Mosaic@York is an example of how peaceful, respectful conversation about participants’ connections to the Middle East can take place on York’s campus. The program provides a platform for participants to express their personal opinions, as well as their emotional connections to the region,” said Maxa Sawyer, one of the UofMosaic student leaders at York University.

Dialogue participants from the three campus chapters will come together for a day-long conference called Citizen Summit: Young Canadians’ Day of Dialogue for Peace in the Middle East, on March 16, 2012. This will be an opportunity for young Canadians who are committed to achieving peace and have a personal connection to the Middle East to come together, listen to expert speakers and engage each other respectfully in mediated dialogue.  Students will also be encouraged to commit to working on a shared “community service project” to further promote inter-community cooperation both in Canada and in the Middle East itself.

The UofMosaic is an initiative of the Mosaic Institute to encourage Canadian university students to confront old conflicts and strengthen our Canadian commitment to fostering peace, pluralism and good government around the world.  Each year, UofMosaic chapters  focus on different conflict zones and work with different communities. The lead funder of this initiative is the BMO Financial Group.

The UofMosaic hopes to build bridges of understanding between campus-based ethnocultural communities via student-run chapters and an online presence (www.uofmosaic.ca) in order to create a critical mass of Canadian students working together for peace and development. By providing university students with a safe forum for fruitful dialogue, and an alternative to the campus politics of confrontation, we hope to encourage joint action for peace, greater inter-cultural understanding, and ultimately, a stronger Canadian mosaic.

by Anam Ansari & Lorenzo Vargas

New Faces and Changing Roles at the Mosaic Institute

Gabriella Siciliano, Rabea Sultan and Steven Wang (l to r)

November 1, 2011

There are some new faces and some familiar faces with new roles to be found at The Mosaic Institute this year.

Mike Morden, who began interning with Mosaic in early 2009 and became the first Program Coordinator of our UofMosaic initiative in 2010, has had to withdraw from that role. Mike is now at the stage of doing field research for his Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Toronto, and his schedule does not allow him to continue with the extensive demands of coordinating the UofMosaic program, especially now that it is operating on three (3) campuses in Toronto and is soon to expand to Montreal and Vancouver. Consequently, in September he moved to the role of Special Advisor for the UofMosaic program, which allows him to continue to have valuable input into the program’s direction, and involves him most directly in generating content for the http://www.uofmosaic.ca website.

Replacing Mike as part-time Program Coordinator for the UofMosaic is Lorenzo Vargas, who was a summer intern with Mosaic earlier this year. Lorenzo immigrated to Canada from Colombia with his family in 2004. In 2010, Lorenzo completed his B.A. in Development Studies at York University, where he was also an active student leader and community organizer. He has led the development of the UofMosaic on the Ryerson and York campuses, and is carefully overseeing the delivery of the UofMosaic Dialogue on the Middle East, which is taking place on all three Toronto-based universities this year. Lorenzo aspires to an eventual career in international affairs journalism.

To support Lorenzo, we recently created the position of Program Assistant for the UofMosaic initiative, and Sheara Guttman, a talented senior undergraduate student in history at Ryerson University, has assumed that role. Although she is only with us for 10 hours each week, Sheara is making a stellar contribution to the organization and delivery of our student programming on the Middle East this year.

Herveen Singh left the Institute at the end of the summer to assume an academic position with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Replacing her as Program Manager for our South Asian-Canadian Global Citizenship Project(SACGCP) is Gina Csanyi-Robah, who was one of the facilitators involved in the SACGCP when it was presented in the Peel District School Board in the first half of 2011. Gina is an experienced educator and human rights advocate, and also the current Executive Director of the Roma Community Centre in Toronto. Trained as a human rights activist in 2004 at the European Roma Rights Centre based in Budapest, Hungary, Gina worked as an advocate to desegregate the education of Roma children in Hungary. More recently, she has worked as a consultant for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, a presenter for the William Waters Symposium on Urban Education, and the manager of a hate crime prevention project with Roma youth in Toronto, entitled Hate Can Kill. We are delighted to have her join us as Program Manager of the SACGCP. 

Isra Rafiq has served in many capacities for the Mosaic Institute. She was one of the principal Curriculum Consultants for the development of the South Asian-Canadian Global Citizenship curriculum; she was a facilitator for the delivery of the SACGCP in the Peel Board; and, from April to September, she served as the Program Assistant for the SACGCP. Although Isra remains involved as a facilitator for the delivery of the SACGCP in Toronto, she recently left her role as Program Assistant to assume teaching positions with Pathways to Education and the Toronto District School Board.

With Isra’s departure, Steven Wang has assumed the role of Program Assistant for the South Asian-Canadian Global Citizenship Project. Steven is a recent graduate of the University of Toronto’s International Relations specialist program. He has also studied at “Sciences Po”, Paris and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Steven has been involved in various initiatives on development in western Kenya and the West Bank. He has served as a research assistant to Dr. Stephen Clarkson and has presented before the Canadian Political Science Association. Steven is trying to make the most of his year off before  pursuing a Master’s degree overseas and then a career in international law or diplomacy.

As in past year, our volunteer interns provide valuable support to our paid contractors. Each of the following women is volunteering with Mosaic for one day each week, and each is already making an important contribution to our work:

Anam Ansari is studying Peace and Conflict Studies and Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. She represents Mosaic’s continuing tradition of receiving interns each year from the Trudeau Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies. Though she is only in her second year as an undergraduate, Anam is enormously mature in her approach to work, and is a tremendous asset to us. She has an extensive background in volunteer work, and was one of the founding members of “Youth Troopers for Global Awareness” (YTGA) in 2006. A Canadian of Pakistani heritage, Anam also works as an Events Associate with the Pakistan Development Fund (PDF).

Gabriella Siciliano is a bilingual Masters Candidate at the Glendon School of Public and International Affairs at York University. She has her Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in Global Development Studies from Queen’s University. Her particular interests are in sustainable development and national defence but it is her passion for foreign affairs that brought her to Mosaic. She has been engaged in her community both at school and internationally and hopes to have a career in the federal public service. In 25 years she hopes to represent Canada as an Ambassador. Gabriella is helping to design and organize the “Reconciliation Tour” of Sri Lanka that is currently being planned with some of the graduates of the Institute’s “Young Canadians Peace Dialogue on Sri Lanka”, and is also involved in the organization of the end-of-year Citizen Summit on the Middle East for the UofMosaic.

Rabea Sultan is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, currently pursuing a specialist degree in Political Science and a minor in French. She is looking forward to pursuing graduate studies in Global Health Policy, and aspires to work with the UN to manage and implement better health policies in less-developed countries worldwide. She is grateful to Mosaic for giving her a platform to learn, and help bring other students together in effort to achieve common goals for the diverse Canadian society. With several years of both paid and unpaid work behind her, Rabea brings a wisdom and a work ethic to the Institute far beyond her years. She has assumed a lead role for developing a national “roll out” strategy for the UofMosaic’s on-line presence.

The Mosaic Institute is fortunate to have these contractors and interns working with us this year.

John Monahan

The South Asian-Canadian Global Citizenship Project Debuts in the Toronto District School Board

Toronto, October 28th, 2011

Today, the Mosaic Institute launched its “South Asian-Canadian Global Citizenship Project” (SACGCP) at Etobicoke’s West Humber Collegiate Institute in cooperation with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB.). More than 75 young people ages 15 to 18, from 3 different high schools, participated in Day 1 of this exciting initiative that looks at the privileges and responsibilities of Canadian and global citizenship through the lens of Toronto’s thriving South Asian communities. Most of the participating students identified a personal or family connection to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. 

Dil Alvi, Principal of Humber C.I., talks to eager students on Oct. 28th

The program is following a plan set out in an innovative set of curriculum materials specifically developed by the Mosaic Institute for this project. On Day 1, entitled Legacy Building at Home and Abroad, they learned about the role that the values of pluralism and diversity play in the Canadian mosaic, studied the Canadian Constitution and the Charter of Rights, and discussed Canada’s contribution to the establishment of such international organizations as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court. Before the middle of December, these students from West Humber C.I., Thistletown C.I., and north Albion C.I. will also participate in workshops on such topics as Examining our South Asian Heritage, Examining Possibilities for Peace in South Asia, and Investing in Our South Asian Communities.

In addition to participating in workshops and group learning activities, students will have an opportunity to engage with special guest speakers from Canada’s South Asian community who continue to make important contributions to Canadian civic life. These include the co-founders of the non- profit organization Kahaniya, the founder of the Seva Food Bank, a professor of international human rights law from the University of Toronto, and an inspector from the York Regional Police.

Throughout the duration of this this program, students will be actively involved in Community Service Projects that reflect the SACGCP’s emphasis on constructive “global citizenship.” The International Development Relief Foundation (IDRF), BuildChange, and Plan Canada will all be working closely with the students, who will also have the opportunity to develop and deliver service projects that serve communities in Toronto.

This initiative is the follow-up to successful Mosaic programming that was delivered in the Peel District School Board last spring. The project in Peel brought together more than 200 young Canadians of South Asian descent from across Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon. By its end, students were presenting original documentaries, public service announcements, guides for conflict resolution within the South Asian community, essays, art work and skits they had prepared that demonstrated the promises & possibilities of Canadian citizenship. They had also completed a number of “Community Service Projects” in support of Canadian NGOs doing essential work to help build communities and enrich the lives of people across South Asia, including PLAN Canada, Human Rights Watch, the Water and Sanitation Rotarian Action Group (WASRAG), Amnesty International, Kahaniya and the India Village Poverty Relief Fund.

Long before the Mosaic Institute began the delivery of these projects in Peel or Toronto, it consulted with more than 30 community organizations from across the GTA. Many of them commented that “imported” conflicts often impede the integration of South Asians into Canadian life, and many lamented that there were too few avenues to address these issues in productive ways.

Now, with the generous support of Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the RBC Foundation, and working in partnership with Canada’s largest public school board, the Mosaic Institute has an opportunity to bear witness as young Canadians are woven ever closer into the fabric of the Canadian mosaic, and as they aretransformed from skeptical teenagers into eloquent ambassadors for Canadian global citizenship.