“Do you realize how strong you are, Sofia*? »
Published at 5:00 a.m.
To the question of her educator sitting next to her, the shy 15-year-old teenager responds with a barely audible “yes”.
We are in a DPJ group home in Montreal at the end of November. The ceiling of the room where the interview takes place, left partially open after water damage, traces of which remain visible, needs repairs.
It is difficult not to draw a parallel with the flaws in the youth protection system revealed by The Press through journalistic investigations in recent months.
Sofia isn’t complaining about the gaping holes in the ceiling.
Abandoned by her family, the young asylum seeker now lives alone in Canada.
Without the DPJ, she would have nowhere to go.
Originally from Angola, Sofia lost her mother when she was a child. She was entrusted to her grandmother who dreamed of a better future for the orphan.
The matriarch asked one of her daughters to bring Sofia to America.
“My aunt didn’t want to make the trip with me,” sums up the teenager modestly. We understand that the grandmother did not give him a choice.
The road of all dangers
Sofia was 12 years old when she arrived in Brazil with her aunt and her partner.
After three months there, the trio takes the dangerous route up America, as tens of thousands of migrants have done before them.
Destination : Canada.
“To leave Brazil, we took a truck,” she says. Afterwards, we started walking. Sometimes we took cars. Then we started walking again. »
Their journey lasted months.
Risking her life, the young girl undertook the crossing of the jungle of Darién, in Panama. Among other things, she crossed a river in a makeshift boat even though she does not know how to swim.
Along the way, criminals stole her money and the food supplies she had brought to survive in the hostile forest.
“I was scared,” says the teenager, who prefers not to detail the violence she suffered.
In the heart of the jungle, she befriended another young migrant. He too dreamed of reaching Canada.
To increase their chances of survival, the two teenagers made a pact to continue their journey together. They crossed Roxham Road at the same time. They requested asylum in Canada. Both landed in Montreal. They vowed not to give up on each other, despite the challenges.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Originally from Angola, Sofia lost her mother when she was a child.
Sofia lived for several months with her aunt and uncle in a small hotel room provided by the state.
“At first, it was good,” describes the teenager. Afterwards, it became a bit… [elle prend une pause avant de poursuivre] bad. »
Promiscuity was difficult. They eventually found accommodation. But the relationship remained strained. The teenager was the subject of a report to youth protection.
While she was housed in a rehabilitation center, her uncle and aunt left Canada, abandoning her to her fate.
The teenager had dark thoughts and had to be hospitalized.
Through the storm, Sofia and the boy she met in the jungle always kept in touch. “He’s like my brother,” she describes.
A balm on his wounds
Today, Sofia is doing better. In two and a half years in Quebec, she managed to learn French. She has made spectacular progress to the point where she has joined a “regular” class this year.
Sofia has caught up in school, so much so that she is in secondary school like other teenagers her age.
She remains concerned about her future in Canada. Now that she is alone here, she may have to start her application from scratch to regularize her status. At least that’s what the lawyer she consulted after the hasty departure of her uncle and aunt would have advised her to do. We feel she is frightened by the complexity of the Canadian immigration system.
The DPJ Youth Foundation offered him the opportunity to participate in a day camp last summer. For a few weeks, the young asylum seeker was able to put her worries aside.
She recounts her experience at the camp: “We had an all-nighter, during which we listened to music; played werewolf [jeu de rôle populaire dans les camps de vacances] ; watched a film,” she lists. A smile lights up his face for the first time during the interview.
At camp, she became a teenager like any other again.
It is precisely the role of the Foundation to help the young people of the DPJ to heal their wounds, to develop fully and to take off with confidence towards adult life, explains its senior director of philanthropic development and communications, Marie -Hélène Vendette.
The Foundation funds what would usually be covered by parents. Through six programs, it offers, among other things, financial assistance for post-secondary studies or extracurricular activities such as piano lessons or participation in a sports team.
It also pays for therapy as well as sessions with an emotional support dog for those who have suffered abuse.
Requests to the Foundation have increased in number and intensity, underlines Mme Vendetta. Last year alone, the Foundation injected more than $2 million into its aid programs.
It was in the context of the Foundation’s campaign that Sofia agreed to tell her story.
At the end of the interview, the shy teenager opens up about her passions: singing, poetry and… running.
She and her high school participated in an organized race earlier this year.
Sofia ran very quickly, says her educator.
“You didn’t win, by the way?” “, she insists.
Sofia nods. She finished first. But she is far too humble to brag about it.
* His first name is fictitious; his story is not.
Consult the fundraising campaign of the DPJ Youth Foundation
