This story is part of the 2013 Atkinson Series: Me, You, Us. Journalist and author Michael Valpy has done an investigation into social cohesion in Canada — what binds us together, what draws us apart.

Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood makes you believe. It makes you believe in Canada and the feel-good mythologies about the country. It makes you believe that multiculturalism is indeed part of the national ethos and that maybe we do it well.

Here we have 25,000 people churning through 34 apartment buildings, almost 95 per cent of them recent immigrants with high levels of unemployment and under-employment, a median household income of less than $40,000 and on average three children per family under 12.

It makes you applaud the people of the Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office — people like charismatic Sabina Ali, who runs the office’s women’s programs and this year had the inspired idea of starting a craft and food market to give women a break from food preparation and child-caring and let them socialize and be entrepreneurs.

It certainly makes you applaud the Toronto District School Board.

Related: What binds us together, what pulls us apart?

More on the Atkinson Series

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Thorncliffe Park Public School is the largest elementary school in North America. It has 2,000 pupils from 47 countries — 80 per cent of them with Pakistani and Afghan backgrounds, “and the other 20 per cent is very diverse,” says principal Jeffrey Crane. Nearly 700 children attend its all-day junior and senior kindergarten, which is named for Canada’s early-childhood-education advocate Fraser Mustard.

Its population changes every week as families move in and out of the neighbourhood. It takes in children who don’t know a word of English, who are 8, 9, 10 and 11and have never been in a school. It uses children to translate for other children in small designated “newcomer programs.”

Catherine Ure, principal of the Fraser Mustard Kindergarten, says, “I think we’re trying to create more of an inclusive environment than an assimilative environment. Around the new kindergarten (which opened in September) we’re not looking to Canadianize them. We want to include them in Toronto and that’s why we want to bring in the home languages and bring in the parents and mesh Ontario education with the cultural background they’re bringing with them and make it a kind of seamless educational exerience.

“We’re going to try to bring in their cultural background and the realities at home, simple things like what happens before a meal. Well, a lot of them have special prayers before meals. We recognize that and give them the opportunity to talk about that — how do different people approach mealtime. None of it is particularly Canadian.”

Although it all is.

Crane and Ure says a school with 2,000 pupils wouldn’t work in a mainstream Canadian community where children have a greater sense of entitlement.

Parents and their children come to Thorncliffe Park with a deep respect for schools and teachers. “They’re not in here questioning or demanding,” says Crane. Discipline is not an issue.

Parental involvement has not been high. The two school officials says parents trust that if they bring their children to the school, the school will educate them.

But since 2010, a group of mothers — calling their organization by the wonderful name of Don Valley Women of Nations — have set out to involve parents in the school, take community public health and environmental initiatives and improve access to community and public information resources.

They were asked, for this Atkinson Foundation project, to write imaginary letters home to a friend telling them what to expect if they’re thinking about emigrating to Canada. In the end, six women and two men participated.

Here are a fewobservations from those letters.

On running a household

“Unlike back home, where you pay people to do your household chores, in Canada it doesn’t work that way. You have to do everything on your own from shopping to paying bills, laundry and a lot more.”

“Domestic life also will not be as it was back home. Both husband and wife have to cooperate with each other in doing house chores. That’s how the homemaking starts with love and care and warmth.”

“You have to do all your work by yourself, starting from cooking, laundry, grocery, picking and dropping kids and other small work. These are not as hard you think. You will get used to it once you start doing.”

On jobs

“When you land here you have enough to pay your bills for few months. You would not want to live on your savings. Initially, you probably will manage a survival job. Do not get frustrated with that as it will help you to keep the money that you have brought with you. Observe, seek information, navigate the systems and have patience.”

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“You may get a job in your field if you are lucky! Otherwise wait, do some volunteering, enrol in a course to ‘upgrade’ yourself. I can tell you that the requirement of Canadian experience is a huge barrier. This, in my view, is systemic discrimination.”

“Volunteer work really counts a lot and this will also help to make new network, friends. You will also get good references once you do volunteer work. Reference is very important at every stage of settling in Canada.

“One more surprising thing for me to learn is that even in Canada they prefer gender. I have seen a person who was doing job on an on-call basis and when there was an opening of fulltime position that person applied but he was not even called for an interview, saying that they need to hire lady in that position. Another thing I have seen was that in one office if they have an opening no matter how qualified person apply they will not hire as they have set person for that position. We have seen this in our countries but never thought we’d see these practices going on in developed country as well. This was really shocking for me.”

“There are organizations who talk about employment service but I have not seen any one of them guide me properly. I am not sure how much people have got job of their own profession from those places.”

On debt

“Once you are settled, you will find another challenge. No, not about youir culture or family values but something else. There is a tendency that people do not live within their means and lose track of their spending habit. To me this is more important to ponder at than being worried about other issues.”

On education

“In terms of your child schooling you have to be in touch with the teachers and discuss your child progress and get to know the Canadian education system by attending various school activities.”

“The teachers and principals are very wonderful they help everyone and every new comer. I would say the school system is hassle free than our back home education system. There is no study pressure on students in elementary school but in middle and high school a little pressure but not like our system.”

On winter

Do not worry about the weather, we have heaters everywhere. I personally do not complain as I knew about the weather before coming and you know that we have terrible summer in our part of the hemisphere so this ‘regulated’ (heater controlled) winter weather is better than our summer weather.

Child care

Child care service is expensive but you can apply for subsidy but that’s a long wait. That makes life a little bit slow as both of you can’t start job or volunteer work until you manage for child care. I have seen parents taking turns in getting into job as they have to think for childcare.

Health care

You will get health card from the government so most of your medical expense is free apart from your eye, teeth. Dental cost is very expensive so complete all your dental work before moving here. You can have a family doctor who would deal with your regular sickness and they will refer you to specialized doctor when it’s required. If you have any other problem you have to go to hospital emergency. That is the worst place as you have to wait for long hours. In hospitals they don’t have enough doctors. Back home if you want to see any specialized doctor you can go easily but it is not like that over here. This was a bit surprising to me.

And one more thing …

“I came here with the idea that if you work hard and are resilient you could achieve success. I still do believe that, however, bring three Ps with you. Patience, Perseverance and Prayers.