We take it for granted every day.  We rattle of a list of things to do in the morning meeting, jot down chicken scratch and then go about our business, not thinking twice about what we're doing. But for hundreds of Moose Javians, it's not that easy.

English can be a very hard language to learn but thanks to the Multicultural Council, the process is getting easier for immigrants calling Moose Jaw home.  Laura Butt is a teacher and says reading is the only shortcut to speaking English.  
While we celebrate Family Literacy Week, Butt emphasizes the importance of reading and writing to her students every day, and would like to share the same message to all parents, saying it's never to early to start working with your children.

"Any age that they are is the time to begin if you haven't begun. Playing with the alphabet letters and helping them to know that 'b' says 'buh', even when they are very small, gives them an extra head start as they prepare for reading."

Butt says reading is the best way to be able to learn a new language because it lays the base work such as vocabulary, spelling and grammar.

"A love of reading is one of the primary things of Literacy Week. All students do better if they are comfortable reading and when they love to read, then they can read to learn instead of just learning to read."

Being able to read is the major driver for one of Butt's students. Phitrona Musa is from Sudan and has struggled with English, it even resulted in a fail of the citizenship exam because she couldn't study the content.  

Now, she's taking reading and writing seriously. As a single mother of five kids so she's busy but thanks to her teachers, she's making progress. "When you read, it's good but when you don't, it's not easy to come back to school. It's very hard."

If Musa could tell new students one things, it's to focus on their reading and writing saying the rest will come with time.

Reading is one thing that Hawa Kamara appreciates as she takes part in the English classes each week.  She enjoys her time at the library as she works to improve her language skills after coming to Canada from Liberia.

"We go to the library every Monday to read books and to go do some other things. We have a computer class for us here and we read books one or two hours in our classroom. So it's very nice." Kamara also uses homework time with her three boys as a way to improve her reading and writing.

The help that children can provide is also helping Shakir Ullah as he continues to learn English, one of five languages that the Afghan immigrant has learned during his life. He agrees that reading is a major factor in getting better at speaking English.

"The multicultural teachers are very intelligent. They're understanding to new people with the English system that they teach. I'm happy today."

Ullah has been working hard to make a new life for his family here in Canada after seeing terrible events in his home country. He appreciates everything the people of Moose Jaw have done for him, making him feel at home.  He says Canada is a place that welcomes everyone with open arms and he wanted to say thank you with a letter.


Hello everyone,

I hope you are all well and in the future, I wish you all happiness and success.  Today, I want to share with you my thoughts and feelings about life.

My brothers and sisters, life is priceless that God gives us only once. Those who understand this, they are thankful and live their lives to the fullest. I believe life comes in two forms; one type is spent in God's way. This means helping the poor and needy and giving charity to the poor. As well as respect towards one's parents and showing kindness to children and also having mercy on all living things. This is the best type of life to live in the world.

Now we turn to the other type of life. Those who live this kind of life have all of the luxuries of this world. They have fancy cars, big homes and wealth. But from all this wealth, they never help the poor and the needy.  God doesn't favour those who live this type of life.  I believe that 98% of you here, live the first type of life.

You are all kind hearted and willing to help those who are needy. My family and I are witness to this because you have helped us very much.  Who are me and my family to you? And why are you all helping me so much?

Now I know it is because you love people and helping people in need.  My family and I are very happy because of this help and we are very blessed and feel a lot of love towards all of you.  God knows this. God has helped me by brining me into a kind and nice community.

My family and I have very good memories from the Canadian people.  We were living in the refugees camps in Pakistan.  This was the hardest period of our lives. I won't talk about it here because I don't want to make anyone sad.  When I was first told that I was accepted by the Canadian government, my family and I were very happy and we thanked God countless times.  For one week, we celebrated because we were so happy.  After that week, I started to have a lot of questions and when I went to bed, I spent a lot of time thinking about them.

Canada was an unknown country to me with strange people and a strange culture. But I was most stressed about the difference of religion because I had never heard anything nice about your religion from people there. People always told me bad things about your religion but they were all lies, but I didn't know.

God sent me somewhere that is nice with nice people. When we first landed in Regina and then we were brought to Moose Jaw, Melissa the settlement worker, contacted a few Afghan families about us and they came to visit. They also gave us assurance that this place is a nice place with nice people.  I was very happy to hear that from them.

After one week, they found me a place to rent and I started my life here from the beginning. I noticed that in a few days, many Moose Jaw residents came to me and helped me our with basic needs such as clothing.  I also found a very kind and nice neighbour that helped in many ways that I can't count.  Her name is Sherry and I am very happy and I thank her a lot.

I am very happy that I am living amongst nice people in a nice city. I thank all of Moose Jaw and the Multicultural Council for helping me numerous times and in many ways.  I have many nice things to tell you and share my happiness with you but due to shortness of time, I must end here.

I wish you all a happy and successful life.
Shakir