Roya Shams, 20, has received wide spread attention in Canadian media since she was supported to come to Canada from Afghanistan by Michael Cooke  and Paul Watson  of the Toronto Star after the assassination her father, a police officer and outspoken voice for women’s equality. Roya’s life was in danger because she was also a vocal advocate for women’s education. Since coming to Canada, it has not been safe for her to return to Kandahar to see her family.

Berak Hussain discovered her passion for counselling back when she was a student at Gloucester High School.

“I was always listening to my friends' challenges and problems and doing my best to offer them support,” she says.

But like many second-generation immigrant students, she decided to study what was expected, not what interested her.

“It was either I be a doctor or I be an engineer.”

So when Berak started studying Psychology at the University of Ottawa, it wasn't because she was planning a career in counselling.

“I was told that it was a good undergraduate degree to have if I wanted to get accepted into med school,” she says.

 But when the young woman discovered that people could actually get jobs listening to people and helping them with their problems, she decided to do the unexpected and pursue the University of Ottawa's Masters of Education in Counselling instead of medicine in order "to help people through the soul rather than the cell".