Alice Zoe Johnson had been in Canada two weeks when she helped save somebody’s life. 
It was 2005 and she, her husband and three children had arrived as refugees after fleeing their war-torn home country of Liberia where Alice had worked as a nurse. 
Seeking familiarity in their new country, the family was at Trinity Lutheran Church in downtown London when a man collapsed. 
Alice rushed over and did CPR until emergency services arrived.
They would learn later that he had suffered a mini-stroke. And to this day, when he sees her, the man thanks Alice for coming to his rescue 15 years ago. 
“I was kind of honoured to do that,” says Alice, who now works as a personal support worker (PSW) in London, while finishing her fourth year of a degree in family studies at Brescia University College. 
But that day in 2005 wasn’t the first time she had helped save a life. 
Alice did three years training as a nurse in Liberia, where she worked before fleeing the country’s civil war to a refugee camp in Ghana. Once there, she continued to work as a nurse. Though there were never enough resources – the camp had one ambulance for 75,000 people –  Alice and the other health practitioners worked tirelessly to help their community members. One shift could include delivering babies, stitching wounds, tend to brutal burns and dealing with diarrhea outbreaks.
Because she arrived in Canada without any educational documents, there were many barriers between herself and a nursing career here. 
But that hasn’t stopped her from working in health care.
She has worked as a PSW in nursing homes as well as home-care since shortly after immigrating. 
She has had two children since moving to London, served as president of the Liberian women’s organization of Canada, volunteered at the London Food Bank and she and her husband support each other to pursue their educational and career goals. 
Alice says she likes to encourage other newcomers to take advantage of English-as-a-Second-Language classes and never give up on opportunity in Canada. 
“There’s no ‘can’t’ in this country. Once you apply the effort there’s always help somewhere,” she says.
These days, as a frontline worker who continues to do homecare during the COVID-19 pandemic, Alice says she is thankful to be working with people in need. 
“I like the interaction with the residents and giving them quality time,” she says. “I love it and I know they love it. As soon as I walk in, they’re happy.”

It was a patient who nominated Dr. Faria Rubab as a candidate for this year’s ‘I am London’ campaign.
“I am happy that Dr. Rubab chose to settle in London, and pleased that she is my doctor,” he wrote on the nomination form. “As a technical person with lots of questions, I have ruffled the feathers of a few doctors and specialists. Dr. Rubab took the time to answer my questions directly and consider my doubts.” 
He’s not alone. In recent years, the mother of three – who worked for years as an internal medicine specialist in Pakistan before moving to London in 2014 – has grown her Byron practice to include more than 1,300 patients. And many of them have thanked her for treating them with kindness they didn’t expect. 
 “It happened to me quite a few times,” said Faria. She recalled one woman who suddenly expressed gratitude to the doctor after two years of being a demanding patient. 
 “She told me, ‘My relationships with my physicians haven’t been very good before. But you’ve dealt with everything I told you,’” recalls Faria. She said ‘You never said ‘why are you coming?’”
But Faria says the appreciation is mutual. She is thankful for the relationships she has been able to build since becoming a family doctor.
“It’s very good,” says Faria, who worked in hospitals for 12 years in Pakistan, before moving to Canada to give her three children, now aged 20, 18 and 14, new opportunities for education and lifestyle. 
“You get to know your people. That’s the beauty of family medicine,” says Faria. “It’s a different kind of connection to the patient. A beautiful relationship and I love it.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic she has seen fewer of her patients in person and she misses them, saying she longs to return to more regular human interactions.
While Faria loves the work she does, she is always looking for new ways to help people. For instance, she has done work in the area of palliative care, and when she learned Canada has a shortage of dermatologists, she did post graduate education in the field so she could take referrals from community doctors who have patients in need. 
“It reduces wait times for people who need to be seen urgently,” says Faria.
Faria says she also loved working as a specialist back in Pakistan, but she and her husband were always looking for opportunities that would help their children see the world and live in a different environment.  
They first arrived in Canada in June 2012,, when “the weather was beautiful,” says Faria. They stayed in Hamilton for two years, living with a friend until Faria was offered a residency for a family medicine program in London. 
Originally, her family intended to move back to Hamilton after Rubab had completed her studies.
“But once I was done, none of us wanted to go back,” she said. “We loved London. It’s a big city in a small city with beautiful outdoors and good educational opportunities including a university here.
“Whatever we were wanted for the kids, we found in London.”