How a program for students in need helped this GTA man get the career he always wanted

Muzammil Syed always dreamed of working in health care but had no idea how to go about charting a path.

Then, thanks to a fellow newcomer who was involved in the group himself, he found out about a community program that aims to break the cycle of poverty through education. Syed, who came to Toronto from Saudi Arabia at age 15, joined Pathways to Education and never looked back.

He went on to earn a master's degree and is now a medical researcher at Toronto's St. Michael's Hospital.

"A lot of newcomers come from countries where they don't necessarily choose a vocation; sometimes I think we just take any job because that's all we know," Syed told CBC News. 

"Pathways kind of expanded our horizons. It says, 'Hey, this is an option, but it's not the only option.'"

Young people like Syed are exactly who Pathways to Education aims to reach. The free program provides financial support, tutoring, career guidance and a community for lower-income students, many of them newcomers — something the organization says is particularly critical given that as many as 50 per cent of youth in low-income communities don't earn a diploma.

"In these communities, when the dropout rates were so high, it was so common that students just accepted that it might be their future," said Quinn Bingham, one of Pathways to Education Canada's vice presidents.

But this program "creates something I think is really critical and that is a culture of high expectations," Bingham said.

"They have a peer group that's saying, "No, you're part of us, we are all going to graduate."

The program recognizes high school graduation as a step on someone's journey, not an end point, Bingham says. 

It also works with existing community partners that may already have a physical space and have the trust of the community already, he says.

For some families, the financial component of the program is what gets young people across the convocation stage. 

Bingham recalls a family that was excited to have both daughters join the program, "because they were struggling to decide which of the two girls could go to school on a given day. They couldn't afford the transit tokens." 

Transit tokens are one of many financial offerings. Others include money for school supplies. Graduating students also receive $2,000 that they can put toward post-secondary education, buying new work clothes and equipment or whatever they need in their next steps after high school, he says.