Original Concept: Oussayma Canbarieh
Oussayma Canbarieh has always had a passion for storytelling. She was born in Damascus, Syria, and grew up in Montreal where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from Concordia University with a minor in Spanish. She received additional training from Concordia University Television in documentary production. She started her journalism career at CBC Radio in Montreal as a local reporter for a morning show, then in Toronto as a national correspondent reporting on immigrants in Canada for Radio Canada International (RCI) for both the English and the French shows. She has travelled extensively in the Middle East while producing several freelance radio documentaries in English, French and Arabic for RCI, CBC, and Radio-Canada.
Producer: Hector Vilar
Journalist and producer Hector Vilar was born in Spain and grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, where he studied Communication. After graduating, he worked for several years in Brazil’s mainstream print and online media. In 2001, he relocated to Canada and in 2004 began to work at RCI broadcasting in Portuguese as the producer and host of the Brazilian section. Hector also furthered his studies in Communication at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) and in 2010 received a diploma in Interactive Media from the Institut de l’image et du son (INIS) also in Montreal. Since 2007, Hector has been producing webdocumentaries. Among other projects, he produced “J’adopte un pays” the first CBC / Radio-Canada podcast, and the webdocumentaries “Voir double – Seeing Double” and “L’érable à palabres”, the latter focusing on immigration of French-speaking Africans to Canada.
Director of Photography: Mark Fiorani
Brazilian photographer Mark Fiorani exhibits a rare passion for creativity. He enjoys exploring possibilities, merging theoretical concepts with function and form, and is always striving for excellence. He is also a very curious being who eagerly accepts new challenges. Mark has a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies with a Major in Advertising and he studied photography at Dawson College in Montreal. He has over ten years of experience in advertising, architecture and photojournalism. He believes in diversity and tolerance, and as a Roman Catholic was extremely excited about the opportunity to learn about the Muslim faith during the course of this project. In Canada since 2006, he recently returned to Brazil to pursuit his career as commercial photographer, now focusing on advertising, fashion and portraiture.
Researcher: Lillian Boctor
Lillian Boctor was born in Montreal to Egyptian parents, grew up in California and created a home in Cuba along the way. She studied Social Sciences at UC Berkeley and worked in community development and social justice struggles in the San Francisco Bay Area for 15 years. Lillian graduated from Concordia University in 2007 with a Graduate Diploma in Journalism. Since then, she has worked as a radio journalist and researcher in Montreal at CBC radio and at RCI in the English and Latin American sections. She has also worked as a freelance journalist in print, radio, and video production. She has loved working at RCI where she can speak English, French, Spanish, and Arabic all in one day. Her passion is working on under-reported stories that can have an impact on society. Her biggest passion though is her 9-year-old daughter Mahalia, who is a star!
Radio Canada International Director: Hélène Parent
Editors in Chief: Pierre-Léon Lafrance, Soleïman Mellali
Editors: Maggy Delisle, Alexandre Frenois et Jean-Yves Houle
Web Developer: José Mujica
Web Integrator: Mauro Valdés, Stéphane Campagna
Original Music: Simon Bellefleur
Logo Designer: Christian Benard
Audio Mix: Marc Gilbert
Translation: Johanne Jodoin
Additional images:
Eduardo
AFP 9-11 photos: Doug Kanter, Stan Honda, Roberto Schmidt, Iannen Maury, Beth A. Keiser
Archives Radio-Canada
Jamilla
Archives Radio-Canada
Africans in Partnership Against AIDS
Rizwan
Archives Radio-Canada
My Canada Project
The People’s Commission
Suad
Shaima Al-Khalili
All maps are from Google Earth