A hefty scholarship is opening the door for a group of North Shore students to pursue higher education.
Seven students who live on the North Shore are winners of the Beedie Luminaries Scholarship, a program that helps remove barriers to education for students across B.C. who have taken on life challenges and face financial barriers. Each student will receive between $22,000 to $44,000 to help achieve their goals.
Grade 12 Carson Graham student Fatiha Zubedi is one of this year’s winners.
“I was so shocked. I ran downstairs and I told my mom,” Zubedi said. “She was so happy, we hugged, and it was just a really nice moment. My little siblings all running around being like ‘Oh wow this is so cool.’”
Before finding out about the scholarship, Zubedi didn’t know how she was going to afford post-secondary.
The high school student helps her mom pay some of the bills plus her own expenses for her school and athletic costs with jobs she can get like being a score keeper at sports games.
“It’s basically just been my mom and my sister and I helping out as much as [we] can,” she said.
But when Zubedi found out she was one of the winners, she felt a huge weight off her shoulders.
“It just takes away so much burden for my mom and so much burden for me, especially because we’re pretty low income, and it’s really hard for us to pay for a bunch of things,” she said. “Getting that scholarship just kind of took away that weight off us and just so much relief came from it.”
Now the 17-year-old will be studying political science at the University of British Columbia in the fall, aiming to attend law school afterwards.
“University is said to be some of the best years of your life, so I’m just really excited to see what the courses are like, meeting new people and just really live that university experience,” she said. “I’m hoping it’s going to be a great time.”
For Capilano University biology student Soraya Salehi, the scholarship signifies a path to education she might not have been able to pursue otherwise in her home country.
Salehi was about to graduate high school when Afghanistan’s capital city Kabul fell to the Taliban on Aug. 15, 2021. She then had an overwhelming life changing choice to make – stay home or leave.
She packed her bags and moved to Canada by herself to finish her last year of high school.
“It was actually my own decision, I decided to get out of there,” Salehi said. “Nobody really accepted, except my grandmother. My grandmother was scared from Taliban because they are not good with women, especially girls.... She really supported me in this journey, and I luckily ended up being here.”
When Salehi moved to Canada, she went to North Shore Safe House for three months where staff helped her with immigration paperwork. She now lives in her own apartment.
Salehi heard about the scholarship from an instructor when she was taking English classes at Capilano University in the fall. She was shocked when she received an email in March saying she won one of the scholarships.
“I was at work when I received the email, and then I’m like ‘There’s no way,’ I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “My whole undergraduate [degree] is going to be covered. It’s a very big thing for me.”
She plans to continue a science degree at the local university and transfer to UBC.
Earning a scholarship was also a big surprise for British Columbia Institute of Technology electrical student Paige Charles.
Charles heard about the scholarship through a staff member at the school, suggesting she should apply.
A huge relief came over the 20-year-old student when she found out she won.
Since age 15, Charles has been working to help support her family to relieve some of the stress from her mom paying off debts, she said.
“I’ve always worked so it hasn’t allowed me to save up enough money to have tuition for school, as well as my mom hasn’t been able to save up money for my education. So it meant a lot to just be able to go,” Charles said.
During her time in BCIT’s electrical foundations program, Charles studies and works full-time, putting stress on her classwork.
But now the scholarship will give Charles the chance to put more focus on school, finishing the electrical foundation program, with dreams of buying a house in Metro Vancouver afterwards.
“It is a wonderful opportunity that just gives me overall relief, just because of how hard life has been, and also there is a need for women in trades and that for me, for women, anyone, that the trades really need more people, and that it’s constantly evolving,” she said.
The luminaries scholarship got its start in November 2018 after real estate developer and philanthropist Ryan Beedie donated $50 million in honour of his 50th birthday.
Now, the program has helped more than 1,000 students, expanding the scholarship over the years to help trade and graduate students, single parents, refugees and new immigrants to Canada.
This year’s cohort awarded 280 students, said executive director of Beedie Luminaries Martina Meckova.
“One of the biggest barriers is financial barriers for students to attend post-secondary,” Meckova said, adding that providing additional support like peer support groups, and providing internship opportunities for students is equally as important.
The National Student Clearinghouse Research Centre found that 34 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds in North America choose not to attend post-secondary because of its financial burden.
The Beedie Luminaries Scholarship tries to bridge a gap in offering more opportunities for people to pursue education, she said.
A recent social impact study from Beedie Luminaries found that over 64 per cent of students would not be pursuing post-secondary education if it weren’t for the program.
“Being an immigrant myself, coming to Canada and having somebody that believed in me and my potential and invested in me, my education and having a mentor….,” Meckova said. “My personal experience has played a key role in designing and managing Beedie Luminaries.”
The other North Shore winners are Karma Ahmed, Lala Lijefors, Alpha Diane Nicolas and Mahsa Heydarpour.
Abby Luciano is the Indigenous and civic affairs reporter for the North Shore News. This reporting beat is made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.
https://bsky.app/profile/abbyluciano.bsky.social
Want to stay updated on North Vancouver and West Vancouver news? Sign up for our free daily newsletter.
