A Cameroonian currently doing refresher training in Val d’Or is realizing a dream after being hired in Quebec to fill a shortage of nurses.
Since her nursing course in the late 2010s, Malika Jamil Njembe Ngouloure wanted to settle down in Canada. In 2011, while still a student, immigration attorneys were invited to her class to promote the benefits of immigration and nursing practice here.
“We tried twice to emigrate to Canada with my husband, but we were betrayed,” says the 33-year-old nurse.
Time passes, the couple has three children, then the sirens sing again. After a year of formalities (application interview, assessment of diplomas, assessment by the Order of Nurses of Quebec, study and work permits, visas, etc.), this is the right time.
“They say, ‘Abitibi chose you.’ In Canada, I knew Quebec in general, I knew Montreal, but I didn’t know Abitibi,” she recalls, saying that despite the cold, she was enchanted as soon as she got off the plane.
Photo agency QMI, Emilie Parent-Bouchard
“They had already prepared everything in the apartment: there was a small welcome gift, toys for the children, diapers, kitchen utensils, bed linen for the bedroom and everything. I was so blinded,” she says.
Busy schedule
Despite a busy schedule that is split between classes during the week, working as a carer at the weekend, looking for school and daycare and other family responsibilities, she wants to stay after the three years of compulsory internship after her skills have been recognized. Especially since she discovered a small, close-knit Cameroonian community in Val-d’Or.
“There is a Cameroonian grocery store right next to the CEGEP. There is also a club called Camerval. They organize parties with the kids so they can have fun,” she testifies.
For his children
Above all, Malika Jamil Njembe Ngouloure wants her children’s education to remain her “priority”. “The type of teaching, the pedagogy they choose, makes my kids so ready for school.”
A possible return to Cameroon is still open. But not now.
“When we retire, when the kids are older, we might decide to go back and open a clinic with everything we’ve learned here…” she chimes in.
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