MELD Community Access Award provides ESL opportunities for Hamilton residents

A new scholarship is bringing a student who fled Iraq with ISIS on his heels one step closer to fulfilling his dream of becoming a doctor.

Saven Denha, who will go into his first year of Life Sciences at McMaster in September, received the inaugural Community Access Award from the McMaster English Language Development (MELD) program.

“Before I learned about the scholarship, there was a mountain on my chest – and now it’s gone,” he says. “My first year in Canada was so hard – the award was a great help for me and my family.”

Denha left Iraq in 2014, spending three years in Lebanon and completing his first year of university. He came to Canada in 2017, after his family was sponsored by a Syriac Catholic church in Mississauga.

The difficulties of translating his existing education into a Canadian context meant he had to go back to high school – and then he faced further challenges with English.

McMaster’s MELD program was the answer.

“I was worried about wasting another year before I got to university, but I had an amazing year in MELD,” says Denha. “I got involved in so many extra-curricular activities – it was a good introduction to university life here in Canada.

The MELD diploma is an undergraduate transition program designed for ESL students who meet McMaster’s academic criteria, but whose scores on English proficiency tests aren’t high enough to meet the university’s language requirements.

MELD students are given conditional acceptance to their academic programs provided they successfully complete a year of MELD’s intensive, full-time ESL instruction, which is designed to get them comfortable with written and spoken English in an academic context, as well as developing their socio-cultural awareness.

Now, with the Community Access Award, MELD has opened its doors to the community as well, working with McMaster’s Office of Community Engagement to offer annual tuition and fees waivers (valued at approximately $26,000) for up to 10 Hamilton residents who demonstrate financial need and want to improve their English skills.

Community participants attend eight months of MELD classes at McMaster, where they receive English language instruction as well as the opportunity to participate in workshops, discussion groups and extra-curricular activities. Although a plan to attend university is not a requirement for the award, those who apply to McMaster and meet the academic requirements will also receive a conditional offer of acceptance for the following academic year.

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to give back to the Hamilton community, especially to newcomers,” says MELD director Anna Moro. “We understand the challenges that come with a language barrier, whether in a classroom, in the workplace, or in a social situation. We hope that by offering the MELD program at no cost to a few individuals, we can help ease that transition and provide them with the language skills and confidence needed to achieve their personal, academic and career goals.”

Denha has known for a long time that he wants to be a doctor. As a little boy in Iraq, he dreamed of helping his sick grandfather. Now, his English is good enough to start making that dream a reality.

Applications for the 2019-2020 MELD Community Access Awards are now open, and will close on Wednesday, May 15, 2019. For more information, please visit the MELD office’s website.