Monthly Archives: September 2012

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Temporary Foreign Worker in Crisis

Janette Camba is going home

Cross-post from the Philippine Canadian Inquirer.

The news was dire and she was just beginning her life in Canada.

In 2009, Janette Camba, then 34 years old, was diagnosed with renal failure, just 1 year after her arrival in Canada on a visa under the Temporary Foreign Workers (TFW) Program.

But she was declared fit to go when she underwent the exhaustive medical exam that was part of the process to enter Canada. It was an emotional time, her leaving – she waited for 6-8 months for her visa to come, and tore her heart out thinking of the family that she would leave behind – a husband and children, 14 and 5 years young. But she knew – thought – the rewards were greater than the sacrifice she had to make.

But in just her first year in Canada – she had to contend with another reality: renal failure.

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In the grand scheme of things

Flying high

A man may do an immense deal of good, if he does not care who gets the credit for it.  ~Father Strickland, 1863

Somebody forgot to mention you in their all-powerful speech. Or acknowledge you. Or to look at you at the right moment – the moment where it mattered – where everyone will realize – or remember – that yes, it was because of YOU.

You were prepared to smile, to blush, to say that it was nothing, or that it did not matter, or that you did not want recognition, or anything.

But you were forgotten.

It was a slip, a sliver of a moment, but it hurt like hell.

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