[URBAN NOTE] "Canada ‘like heaven’ for Tibetan refugee"

[rfmcdonald]

Nick Kozak's Toronto Star article profiles a Tibetan refugee who has now found a home in Toronto.

Somewhere, the Dalai Lama is smiling.

He couldn’t help but be pleased by Tsering Yangzom, a Tibetan refugee who has made Canada and Toronto her home since 2011.

Yangzom, the first Tibetan graduate of the Munk School of Global Affairs, is interested in pursuing a career in refugee and human rights law, perhaps even one day helping to free Tibet.

With a master’s degree in East Asian and Asia Pacific Studies from Munk now completed, law school is next on her list. She’s looking at universities in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.

The 31-year-old is truly a student of the world. She has studied in five countries and speaks English, Tibetan, Hindi and Nepali, and a bit of Norwegian.

But until she came to Canada she was stateless, and all she had for identification was a travel document from India. She knows too well the plight of refugees and has great empathy for the Syrians who are coming to Canada and taking their first steps toward settling in a new homeland. She also feels compassion for those stuck in war-torn Syria and for those who have fled but remain in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

“I can connect on a human level with the problem they’re going through. I can feel it.”