After working as a translator for Canadian Forces in her native Bosnia during the troubling times of the mid-90's, Aida Hakirevic emigrated to Canada.

In 1996, she enrolled in the Canadian Army reserves while studying pure and applied science here at Vanier College. After receiving her engineering degree from McGill University last year, she returned to Bosnia to work with the Canadian Peacekeepers on specific rebuilding projects. Although she survived bombardments from Serbian MiG jet fighters in the years before she immigrated to Canada, she is remarkably free of bitterness. She just returned from a six-month Bosnian stay where, as part of Operation Palladium, she worked to rebuild schools and hospitals to help ease the return of Bosnian refugees to their homeland.

Read more from a newspaper article published September 3, 2002. Click here.