Daniel Fama
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Is making a difference by crossing over cultural boundaries to build peace and understanding
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“With all of the international issues and conflicts abounding today, we need people dedicated to bridging the gaps of culture, language, religion, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and historical animosity, in order to provide a more peaceful and prosperous today and tomorrow.”
For Daniel Fama, 23, from Langley, it was the experience of growing up in Papua New Guinea that fed his current passion for international development, and for learning different languages and cultures. Daniel speaks Swahili and some French (he is part French-Canadian), and is currently learning Arabic. He is convinced that the world is one family, and strives to learn as much as he can about the various members of that family, in order to promote mutual trust and understanding. Daniel firmly believes that work in the international development sector needs to come from a place of love. 
Daniel currently works at Trinity Western University in the Global Projects office of the Student Life department. He is responsible for planning volunteer trips for over 80 students each year, both locally, and globally. He places students with organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, The Mustard Seed homeless shelter in Calgary, and the Bay Area Rescue Mission in San Francisco. Daniel has himself volunteered on the ground with the latter two organizations. Not only is Daniel impacting the lives of the 80 students who complete the placements, he is also enabling those students to change the communities in which they volunteer, and to inspire other Trinity Western students to want to serve.
Daniel’s interest in global development issues, first sparked by his love of different cultures and languages, gained momentum after doing volunteer development work in Tanzania, Africa, in 2008. Daniel traveled to Tanzania to help build a community library and roads to an eco-friendly village. “Even though it was my first time to Tanzania, it felt as though I was coming home, having grown up in a developing country. I enjoyed immersing myself in the local culture, and learning the national language, Swahili. Suddenly, the proverbial poverty-stricken ‘other’ half way around the world was now my personal friend, and I was making a difference in their lives directly.”
Since that first trip, Daniel has been going back to Tanzania every summer. In 2009, he co-led a team of students to Tanga, a city on the East Coast of Tanzania, to work at an orphanage, and on projects related to health care, education, and municipal government. Just this past summer, Daniel partnered with Food for the Hungry Canada to bring a large shipment of medical supplies and equipment to the city. With each successive trip, Daniel is inspired by the people in Tanga that he partners with, whom he now sees becoming leaders in their own communities. 
Daniel graduated with a degree in International Development from Trinity Western University in April 2010. In his spare time, he is a dive master and has led tours in scuba diving in places like Bermuda. He also enjoys hiking in the mountains. In terms of what’s next, he is expanding his commitment to the global family to include the Middle East, and has begun learning Arabic. He hopes that his next placement will be in that part of the world, addressing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, perfecting his Arabic, and learning Hebrew.
Daniel sees all of his international experiences eventually leading him back to Canada to work with refugees and immigrants, to “make them feel welcome and safe here and help them plug into society and have successful lives here too.”
To other Canadian youth who are trying to make a difference, he has this to say: “Don’t be satisfied or content with just advocacy, but get out and do something with the skills that you have too. Life is too short for you to just live selfishly, you’re going to regret it near the end. So any chance you have to do something for others, take it, and do it every day. From the time you wake up, think about what you can do for others – your family, your neighbours – and then as the circle gets bigger, people in other countries.”
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Thanks to Kaitlyn Braybrooke for the graphic design, to Veronika Klaptocz for the written profiles, to Trevor O'Rourke for the French translation, to Scott Nelson for the website and to Reel Youth for the video profiles. |
© Her Majesty the Queen in right of Canada, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) (2011)
