Benjamin Doan is helping Vietnamese students learn, thrive in Sudbury
CBC
The scene is set for Vietnamese students to come to Sudbury.
There's a residence for them, and now a restaurant, named after the classic soup called Pho, that provides a taste of home.
It's all largely due to the efforts of Benjamin Doan, an immigration consultant who moved to the city at the beginning of the pandemic.
After immigrating to Canada in the 80's from Vietnam, he's had a varied career as a restaurant owner and businessman.
In 2014, in southern Ontario, he started working in immigration to attract students to Canada.
Then in November, 2019, along with his brother, he made his first trip to Sudbury.
"We just got a feeling that this is the place," he said.
The students he is helping attract to Sudbury would stand a better chance learning English and competing in the workforce if they lived for a time in the Nickel City, Doan said.
"But if I talk the talk, I need to walk the walk," Doan said. "That's why I had to move here first. I have to be here to be able to help them."
One of the things he encourages his Vietnamese students to first learn about, Doan said, is the local labour market.
"In Sudbury, there's a strong mining industry," he said. "So I would encourage them to go into mining technologies instead of going for business, because business everybody can take."
"But mining is what we need here, the technologies, the engineers."
And despite its reputation as being a dirty industry, Doan said he's actively steering immigrants in that direction.
"Being new in a country. I know it's very hard," he said. "And having someone who knows, and who's helping you, I think that would be much better for them."