This text is part of the special Feminine Leadership notebook
For nearly 29 years, Nahid Aboumansour has helped immigrant women escape their isolation and achieve financial independence. Over the years, she has been able to build expertise by thinking outside the box to offer her sisters concrete solutions with her organization Petites-Mains, which has become a social integration company.
In 2022, she received an honorary doctorate from TELUQ University for her “exceptional dedication”. In 2020, she received the Meritorious Service Cross from the Governor General. She is also a knight of the Order of Montreal and the National Order of Quebec. However, when Nahid Aboumansour arrived in Quebec in 1989, the path was far from being mapped out in advance.
While she was an architect in Lebanon, her country of origin, which she fled due to the civil war, Nahid Aboumansour, like so many other qualified immigrants, encountered the problem of recognition of diplomas by asking foot here. But there is no question of sitting idly at home.
Struggling to find a job, Mme Aboumansour began volunteering to visit isolated elderly women to practice her French and learn more about Quebec society. After the closure of a food bank in the Côte-des-Neiges district, she went to visit the women who frequented it to better understand their needs. It was from this initiative that Petites-Mains was born, which she founded in 1995 with Sister Denise Archambault: an organization offering sewing classes to immigrant women who want to enter the job market.
Her desire is above all to help women achieve a certain financial autonomy and acquire freedom. But also to allow a better future for all these families. “I too am a mother, I have four children,” she explains. And I think that a good parental model is extremely important in a family unit. »
Mme Aboumansour has also put a lot of energy into the issue of the recognition of foreign diplomas in Quebec for almost thirty years. But unfortunately she notes that things have not evolved much in this area.
“I absolutely did not want to pass on this disappointment to my children,” she says. I told myself: I have to take charge of my future, I have to do something important. It was essential for me to be a good example. »
First steps
After a market study (“we went to knock on the door of every large company in Montreal – some didn’t want to open the door, others did – to ask them: ‘What do you need in terms of manpower? work?”), Petites-Mains began to set up partnerships with private companies and training to meet exactly these needs, that is to say industrial sewing. The first cohort included six women, and four of them found employment in industrial sewing, relates Mme Aboumansour, who took advantage of these good results to request funding from the Quebec government.
Since then, things have evolved a lot. If Petites-Mains initially employed three or four people, the integration company now has 35 permanent employees. Around 2,000 people benefit from the organization’s front-line services each year and nearly 200 people from around a hundred countries follow training there each year.
In addition to industrial sewing courses, women who attend Petites-Mains can also choose paid training lasting 26 weeks with the aim of becoming kitchen helpers or office clerks.
In 2000, the organization obtained its accreditation as an integration company, which means that it offers contracts (for making clothing or promotional items, for example), to finance its activities.
Mastering French, one of the keys to success
The following year, the company was able to launch its first French courses. “I remember seeing an English-speaking woman with her child’s report card asking another who was bilingual to translate it for her because she didn’t speak French,” says M.me Aboumansour. I said to him, “Who is going to talk to the teacher if your child is having problems at school?” For me, it was inconceivable. Language is the basis of communication. »
But the process proved complex, recalls Nahid Aboumansour, since the Ministry of Immigration preferred that these women take French courses in organizations that already offered this option. It ultimately took two years of relentless effort. Today, 300 people take this French course each year.
“One thing that has helped me is not seeing things in a box. Because often, organizations work this way: everyone has their own little box. But for me, it’s not like that. We have so many partnerships! »
Faced with all this progress, Nahid Aboumansour is proud, of course. But her real reward is above all seeing that all her efforts succeed in taking the women she supports further. “Given that our projects are a response to a real need, it is viable. It continues. And the customers are there. We don’t create needs! »
This content was produced by the Special Publications team at Duty, relating to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part.