Ten Afghan men, who worked as interpreters for the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan, received their high school diplomas today in Toronto.
Shahwali Shahin was one of the men who worked for the Canadian Forces as an interpreter.
Today at his graduation he told CBC News about the first mission encountering the Taliban.
“I think four or five of them got killed, six seven were injured, that's how we were in combat, in battles,” he said.
The work was dangerous, he and others like him received many death threats from the Taliban and were finally forced to flee Afghanistan and all his family.
“My family back home say study there don't do anything else, just get your dreams whatever you want to be,” he said.
And many of those dreams are coming true.
Shahin will be going to Centennial College for accounting this fall, this much closer to his goal of becoming an accountant and supporting his family in Afghanistan.
“If somebody would ask me there, I would not even be able to tell him or her how to express the feeling I had I was so happy.”
The time difference made his graduation happen in what was the middle of the night in Afghanistan, but his family stayed up to congratulate him.