An Afghan refugee builds her future in Gatineau

Starting from Kabul, in Afghanistan, to flee the Taliban regime, Madina Jabarkhil settled in Gatineau on August 25, 2021. Today, 19, the young woman learned French in a few months to succeed in being able to integrate, in the hope of becoming a Canadian politician.

Kabul, August 23, 2021. Madina Jabarkhil is 14 years old. With her family, she enters a sewer to go to Kabul airport, where hundreds of Afghans try to leave the capital that was taken by the Taliban a few days earlier.

There was dirty water. He was a Canadian soldier who helped me get out of the sewer.

Daughter of a Taliban father and a journalist mother, she remembers her anxiety on August 15, 2021, the day of the Kabul. My own biological father was against usshe explains. He had the power to resume his children, to marry his daughters and to make his son a Taliban.

You couldn’t sleep, not to eat, not go outside and we didn’t have a refuge.

Since taking Kabul, around 3,900 Afghan refugees have been welcomed in Canada, according to a compilation made by Radio-Canada statistics on asylum requests, published by the Immigration and Refugee Status Commission in Canada.

With obtaining their asylum request, Madina and her family flew aboard a Canadian military plane. After a passage of a few weeks in Toronto, the family decides to settle in Gatineau.

Learn French to succeed in its integration

Madina does not speak a word of French when she started school with her brothers and sisters in November 2021. It was difficult to happen somewhere and not to understand what others saidshe said. We were in a reception class. I stayed silent all day.

This linguistic barrier was not enough to slow down Madina, who learned French in less than a year. After seven months, I found a job, she explains. I was not talking about, but I understood what people said. I could say words and solve my problems.

On June 30, 2024, the young woman received her $ 1,000 scholarship from the Bravo scholarship fund, who recognized her supported efforts in learning French and obtaining her secondary school diploma in Outaouais.

It is a model of success for ussays the founder of the scholarships Bravo in Outaouais, Jacques Laberge.

For Mr. Laberge, learning French is the most powerful lever to integrate into Gatineau. You must first have a good knowledge of the language to establish contacts, he said.

Language must be a springboard to know the culture of Quebec, to seek a diploma and insert into the labor market.

The president of the non -profit organization Sport Culture Culture Integration Canada, Ange Idiapa, also believes that the language is essential to promote the integration of newcomers.

However, he considers that challenges are mainly access to francization classes and language practice. It takes time, to have roomsupports Mr. Idiapa.

Also, we have no support service after training. It requires other initiatives in the region, such as workshops to allow people to learn to speak French.

We must combine the individual level, the societal and government level so that a person can really be able to express himself in French.

A call to politics

Since coming to power, the Taliban has imposed restrictions on women in secondary and tertiary education. According to a Women’s UN report (external link) (new window) Posted in June 2025, 80 % of women are now excluded from education and work in Afghanistan.

For her part, Madina Jabarkhil is preparing to start her second year of baccalaureate in economic and political sciences at the University of Ottawa. I will become a politician to help society, to become a leadershe says.

Her mother’s efforts to push her children-especially her daughters-to study and work encourage this young woman at the dawn of her twenties, who wishes to contribute to the change in her host country … and perhaps also in her country of origin.

We don’t really have access to Afghanistan at the moment, but at least we can do institutes where women could go to study, declares Madina. But I don’t know what will happen in the following years

His message for newcomers: Life is like a treadmill. If you stop walking, you fall.