Life in Canada, in Ottawa, will be an adjustment for the Syrian refugees slated to begin arriving in this country in the coming weeks.  They are arriving from camps, fleeing war.  The work will quickly begin to settle them into some sort of routine. Along with health care and housing, high on that list of priorities for the newcomers will be language training.   The teachers, the expertise is here; it's just a question now of finding the space and funding. On the third floor of a building on Ottawa’s Bank Street, there are strange noises coming from one of the classrooms.  Students at the LINC (Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada) program through the Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization (OCISO) are learning how to read and write.

They are learning to laugh again, as well, a wonderful sound for so many of these refugees who have seen life at its worst.  Buthainah Al-Dueima has been in Ottawa only a short time.  She fled Iraq for Syria with her husband, after bombs rained down on her village.

‘The bomb,’ she says in halting English, ‘it take out my eye and my husband two legs broken.’

Now, she is learning English through OCISO along with 163 other students from all over the world. 

23-year-old Mohammad Al-Faraj is Syrian and spent the last 3 years in a camp in Lebanon.  He arrived in Ottawa 5 months ago.

‘No school, no food, no money,’ says Al-Faraj of his days in the camp.

OCISO offers free language instruction to newcomers.  There are 9 classes at its building on Bank Street.  They are all full and there is a waiting list.  But teachers are lining up to help.

‘Yeah, they're there, they're looking for work,’ says Laurie Fraser who is the manager of the LINC program with OCISO, ‘they are already sending me emails saying ‘Do you need teachers for the Syrians?’ and I’m saying we don't have money yet. There’s a lot of excitement.’

OCISO has undergone years of drastic funding cuts.  At one point, it offered evening classes at the Bank Street building but they were cut along with an entire building on Belfast Road. There is space available.  They just need the funding.

And that is expected to follow the Liberal government's announcement in the weeks to come.

There is excitement among the group of students, knowing many of those Syrian refugees will join them here in class.

‘All the people need help,’ says Mohammed Abed, an Iraqi who spent 10 years in Syria before arriving in Canada recently with his wife and three children, ‘I became safer here.  I am free here.’

They are excited that others will share in the opportunities afforded them and their children in this country they now call home. 

‘I like this Canada,’ says an enthusiastic Buthainah Al-Dueima.