The Power of Words

DMCI students have been busy in the community, sharing their own creations throughout our city. 

One of our students, Ali A., was part of a performance for International Development Week. Ali was part of a program at General Wolfe called “Be That Leader” and was chosen for this new opportunity. Four poets including Ali were chosen to present their poem at the Legislative Building. They spent six months writing and preparing for their performance with Steve Locke, a professional poet and artist who guided them throughout the process. 

Ali said, “The collaboration and working with the other poets that were there was really nice, it was fun, and the fact that we had a professional helping us was comforting and helped us a lot.”

In the end, a passionate poem about displacement and the trauma associated with it was created:

Fight for Home

Trauma

It hits so hard

You remember it forever

We were sacrificed to history

War and colonization 

Struck like the asteroid

That killed the dinosaurs

Scattering our families

Our languages

Our identities

And left a wound in us so deep

We will never be the same again

Now we’re here to tell our stories

So you will hear our truth

And so others like us

Won’t suffer

I don’t feel safe at school

every fire drill

Takes me back

Ukraine

bodies lying in the streets

The horrible alarm

drilling panic and hopelessness

Into us

Teacher says 6 minutes

Until the missiles arrive to destroy us

The basement shelter is dark and cold

I close my eyes

I am safe I’m safe 

But the Voice in my head keeps saying

maybe death is good fortune

Because the war is torture

Knowing I could die any day

And just hoping I don’t suffer

I carry war inside

It chokes me every night

As long as I am alive

I will tell the truth

Of the pain we carry

War leaves a permanent stain

The memories, the scars, the pain

The poverty, the necessity to survive

Syria

Sounds of hunger fill the air

Hope is lost, too hard to bear

The nights are cold and the days are long

The country I once knew, how dead and gone

One day I’ll find a place to be

Where violence and despair can’t reach me

My gunshot wound will be here forever

When will this trauma heal? Never! 

Imagine if you were told: 

You must stay here, adapt

You must learn a new language

You must forget your culture

You are now a number

This sounds familiar.

Home can’t feel like home

If the trauma lives in our bones

Where do we belong

When every tradition is alien

And we’re shamed into forgetting

Who we are

O, Canada

Our home and native land?

More like,

Your home on our land

you stole children

Held them prisoners in schools

Taught them to wash the dirty Indian off their skin

to learn the ways to live

In someone else’s world

Are we really strong and free?

If we’re struggling to survive this living history

As you sit here safe and sound

There are still countless bodies to be found

Beneath the sky, the old trees weep

Roots once strong, now buried deep.

Our ancestors’ voices fade away

As we carry the pain of yesterday.

Generations scarred, yet still we stand,

Displaced upon this stolen land.

Oppression’s weight, too hard to bear.

Yet in our hearts, we still declare:

The land is ours, the song will rise,

A ragged hope in tired eyes.

Though broken, we are not yet done -

Our fight for home has just begun.

We want to be accepted

We know the truth of genocide and ethnic cleansing

We are people, not some dirt

So let us live, let us breathe,

Let us thrive, let us speak

On our land, in our language

As we stand with our courage

Here, home, forever.

Video link to their performance: Fight for Home - Voices for Change 2025

Due to their moving work, the poets were given an award. Through this opportunity, Ali was able to connect with others in the community. Congratulations on being recognized by leaders in the province!

• Written by DMCI Spotlight