'Everybody can do something:' Regina woman helps newcomers find their way in the community

For more than 20 years, MunaDe Ciman has been a source of strength and inspiration to newcomers to Saskatchewan.

Originally from Sierra Leone in northern Africa, she and her family settled in Regina in the early '90s. She immediately began taking courses and volunteering on many, many boards.

De Ciman who isa nominee for CBC's #iamSKproject credits the people she and her family first met in Saskatchewan for seeing them not as "poor refugees" but as people with something to contribute.

"When I think about when we came as newcomers, if we did not meet these strategic people that were standing there waiting for us, we would not have made it. Even though we had the ability, we would not have made it," she said.

"Everybody can do something. We all can do something in making a difference in people's lives."

For De Ciman, that was sometimes as simple as offering people a ride, even if it meant kicking her children out of the car.

"My kids would think I was a mean mom. Sometimes I would tell them to get down of the car, and take newcomers," she said with a laugh.

"They would look at me as if I'm a crazy mother, but that's what people do for their community. I would say, 'You stay here, I'll come and pick you up. But those people need my help. You don't need my help now.'"

'Singing of a melody'

Today she's on the board of the Regina Multicultural Society, which is in the middle of its 50th Mosaic multicultural festival. The city is certainly more diverse than it was 50 years ago, and even than it was when De Ciman arrived about 25 years ago.

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She loves seeing all the different cultures, the variety of food, and hearing different languages spoken.

"It's like the singing of a melody," she said.

"Culture is a big part of human identity, and Ialways tell people, when you take culture away from the human being, what else? Because culture is who we are."

Mosaic provides a showcase for that diversity, she said.

"If you go to the Kiev pavilion, right in the middle of the parking lot there's music going on. I said, 'Yes, everybody's proud to be who they are today.' I wish I could be a Ukrainian because of that music."

CBC Saskatchewan is embarking on an ambitious storytelling project to mark 2017. #iamSK will share stories of people who are helping lead us today or building our future in Saskatchewan. Are you or someone you know a leader, innovator, newcomer or community builder of our province?Nominate someone or yourself today for #iamSK: Saskatchewan's people, places and faces.