Ayodeji Oluwadamilola arrived in Portage la Prairie on October 4, 2019, and was thankful that her mother, who picked her up at the Winnipeg airport, brought a hoodie for her to put on after stepping off the plane. “It was freezing!” exclaimed Oluwadamilola, who had made the long trek from Nigeria with her father and…
LIP Blog
Eve O’Leary
Eve O’Leary may be Portage la Prairie’s biggest booster, and she has only lived here for a few short months. The recently hired Executive Director of Portage Regional Economic Development arrived in November 2019 from Flin Flon but has been in Canada for six years since immigrating from Ireland in 2014. Although it’s the job…
David Miller
David Miller’s route to Canada sounds something out of a romantic novel. He met a woman online, they started talking, and he decided to leave his family, home and business to travel 4,000 miles to find out if it was the real thing. “It was a gamble really, I suppose,” he muses. “But I’d do…
Gurpreet Kaur
Gurpreet Kaur Imagine being 17 years old and leaving your family and friends behind to start an entirely new life over 12,000 km away. Gurpreet Kaur did just that when she travelled to Winnipeg in December 2012 on a student visa to attend school. In the seven years since her arrival in Manitoba, she has…
Looking for Business Ideas in Portage la Prairie
Gautam and Sonali Kapoor and their two young sons originally from India, heard about the Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program (MPNP) through an acquaintance, and decided to apply to it to come and open a business in Manitoba. They began the long process in 2016 of meeting the standards to becoming accepted to the program…
Canada Reunited my Family from the Philippines
Marites Samontina, a single mother, finally has her two children with her after 11 years of working jobs away from the Philippines. Two years ago, she was permanently reunited with her children ages 13 and 9 when she was able to bring them to Canada and join her in Portage la Prairie. Her children had…
Paying it Forward with Mostafa
Mostafa Skouta is originally from Morocco, Africa, but he felt that something was missing from his life. He wasn’t happy with the class systems in Morocco and how the rich and powerful people would use their influence to better themselves- with bribery and fraud being a common occurrence in daily life. He longed for a…
Mathelious Gomes – Bangladesh
Mathelious Gomes is a 35-year-old resident of Portage la Prairie and came to the community through Boston Pizza. Incredible as it sounds, it is absolutely true. How was this done, you may be pondering, to get a young man all the way from Bangladesh to Portage la Prairie? Well, sit down, enjoy a beverage and…
From Pakistan to Portage la Prairie
A young 20-year-old, Raahim Iqbal made the journey from Pakistan to Winnipeg to become an International Student at the University of Manitoba in 2011. He arrived in December in the cold winter after finishing 5 years of Army Boarding School in Pakistan. At the Army School, he learned a great deal of discipline including daily…
Iftakar Houlani – Syria
Iftakar Houlani – Syria Picture this in your imagination: You are leaving your country that you were born and raised in for over 30 years because of conflict, fighting, guns and fear. You are leaving a place that was home to you and your spouse and children so that your family will be safe. You…