09/15/2026
🌎✨ This week, we welcomed Sara from Colombia at Laval Senior Academy, Joakim from Finland and Luca from Brazil at Rosemere High School! 🇨🇴🇫🇮🇧🇷
Although these three students are all around the same age, they are living very different realities as international students — and that’s what makes international education so enriching and exciting at Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board! 🌍🎓
Studying abroad opens the door to new opportunities and allows students to experience a completely different context from the one they are used to. Along the way, they learn so many wonderful things: resilience 💪, independence 🌱, autonomy, friendship 🤝, adapting to new environments 🌎, discovering new cultures 🗺️, advocating for themselves 🗣️, and so much more!
📸 Here is a quick snapshot of their first few days in Canada 🇨🇦:
👧 Sara 🇨🇴
Sara’s semester abroad is giving her the opportunity to live with a new family, where she gets to take on the role of a big sister to her younger host brother and sister 🥰 — quite a change from being an only child back home! She is loving the experience, enjoying every minute of it and making the most of this incredible opportunity! ✨💕
🚲 Joakim 🇫🇮
Joakim gets to bike to and from school, and it only takes him 6 minutes! 🚴♂️⏱️ He is enjoying being part of a very welcoming homestay family with four teen/pre-teen children, all around his age, giving him the opportunity to develop special bonds with each one of them. 👨👩👧👦💙
He also found our fall weather absolutely fantastic! 🍂🍁 Being used to temperatures of 5–10°C at this time of year in Finland, and all the way down to -40/-50°C in the winter ❄️🥶, our Quebec fall feels pretty amazing! He’ll be with us all year, so we’ll see what he thinks of Quebec winters when spring rolls around… 😜❄️
😎 Luca 🇧🇷
Luca is here having the time of his life! 🎉 His family moved to Canada 12 years ago from Brazil, and his cousins are all RHS graduates. Now, he gets to live the same experience as them — but on a shorter-term stay, as he is scheduled to return to Brazil around January. 🇧🇷✈️
He is enjoying spending time with his family and even got a special introduction to all his teachers! 🏫📚 His cousin, who graduated from RHS a couple of years ago, took him around the school on his first day and helped him feel right at home. 💙
🌟 Whether you are traveling abroad for the first time and requesting to live with a homestay family, or living with family members in the area, our international program has everything you need to make this experience one for the books! 📖✨
🌎✈️🇨🇦 New country. New friendships. New experiences. New memories. ❤️
