Imagine walking in an immigrant shoes. You leave everything you know behind. The familiar becomes unfamiliar, the known unknown. Certainty becomes uncertainty. Why you're in the pursuit of possibility. And even when others have blazed a path similar to the one you're about to travel, no one but you gets to carry the weight on your shoulders. It's a tightrope. And with your family's hopes is your balance pull. And undoubtedly whispers questioning your resolve.
Yet some turn this tension into triumph. That dream never changed. I just desired. And if you can dream it, you can just become it. Dapo Bengkoli is one of them. His story isn't just about surviving the immigrant experience. It's about reinventing what it means to arrive in a country like Canada. Where am I? That mental stress was what affected my psychology, I would say, because again, it affected my relationship with my wife, with my
kids. And today on Chatter that Matters, we unpack his journey from crushed confidence to courageous contribution. And now, how he's building bridges for. Others to cross, giving them every support possible, removing all the unnecessary bureaucracy and barriers in front of them so that we can succeed as a nation. Hi, it's Tony Chapman. Thank you for listening to Chatter that Matters, presented
by rbc. If you can please subscribe to the podcast and ratings reviews, well, they're always welcome and they're always appreciated. Dapal Bengkoli, welcome to Chatter that Matters. Thank you, Dapal. What I loved about reading is you talked about dreaming of Canada for a very long time. And I think that dream really started to happen in your mid teens. Correct. What made you even think about Canada? What did you think and you
imagine would be welcoming for you here? Before Canada, I just wanted to live abroad with kind of like being boundless, being unrestricted, like whatever I did really mattered. And you know, where I come from, it's a lot of you need to know people and a lot of things like that to really move up. And I felt I wanted an environment where, you know, your hard work actually pays for you, that sort of thing, that you had a lot of advancement and things. So that was really the dream.
A family friend I got to know about this country that I've chosen to call home today, that Canada exists. And I started to figure things out and just do my research. I mean, I consider different countries, honestly, I consider the U.S. the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and even the Scandinavian nations, precisely Sweden. But I settled for Canada. And you moved to Canada in your mid-30s, your early 30s, right? Correct. What was the impetus from dreaming to. Doing for me that Dream never changed. I
just desired. And maybe I've just been influenced by my parents and my. The school I went to. If you can dream it, you can just become it. Like, okay, I want it and somebody has done it. And for me, that was in fact a very good encouragement. The fact that somebody else in my cycle had done done it. I'm like, oh, then nothing's stopping me. I just need to figure out how it's going to work for me. The one thing that could have held me back, of course, was my marriage. When I was courting
my wife, I remember I mentioned it to her. I'm like, hey, I plan to live abroad. I think it's going to be Canada, but I'm not sure when or how and all that. And I just wanted her to be in alignment. The fact that I had her in support, that gave me a stronger motivation that two of us were looking at the same thing. And the other thing I liked is how you sort of packed your knapsack before coming, you know, certificates you're earning, investing time
and money. Was that sort of advice you can give to others, that if you set a goal that you start working towards it immediately, even if that goal's not going to manifest for many years. It's important that every day, or at least you can look back and say, I've done something that's going to make this dream closer to reality. No doubt about that. Like, I believe I'm a strong believer in planning, in, you know, setting a goal and do something every
day, every day, every week, whatever cadence works for you. Just make sure you're on it. Where a lot of us miss it. And I fall into that trap too sometimes, is just because you are not seeing something right doesn't mean that it's not happening. You just don't know. There is that magical moment. I never really know. There's something just tilts. It's like a farming. When you put a seed in the soil,
you got to water it. There's a time you'll never see anything. You just have to believe it's trust all the while, do all the hard work. But it's spring now. I've started doing stuff in my garden here in Compound. I'm not seeing anything, but I know it's happening. So we got to stay the course for sure. We've looked at and talked to a lot of newcomers, and very often they come to a new country like Canada thinking it's a beautiful red carpet and
the streets are paved to gold. But what you find Is really a steep staircase. It's complex. There's affordability issues and stuff. What was your experience like when you first after all these years and you. Arrive, you know, as I say, like what you ordered versus what you got? Honestly, it felt like a scam. At some point, I'm just like, whoa, what have I gotten myself into? Right? But what I've learned is you can plan all you want. Sometimes
things pan out, sometimes they don't pan out. So knowing when to give up or when to re plan and re strategize and just get up and keep moving, it was very shocking. The only difference is, for me, the wait, it was painful because now it wasn't just me. They say this wasn't just that, but now I had a wife. I had two young kids, age 7, age 3 at the time, and I had sold the dream to them. They bought into it. Everybody looked forward to it.
So it's a case of, okay, is it that daddy lied or daddy didn't do his own work, or my husband, you know, so it was a mixed bag of emotions, I dare say. So I'm curious about when, you know, you talk about with your wife and your kids and they're counting on you and you sold them the dream, how much pressure is that on you? Because I think what you talk about is that within months of arriving, your confidence was unraveling. There's a series of moments that knock the
window to your sales. Well, you've got to deal with that, but you've also got to show some strength to your family, don't you? I think much of the pressure was internal, was me. Definitely cannot look back and say, hey, my kids put me under this pressure. But it was me comparing where we were with where we're coming from and the life we lived and that sort of thing to what was happening to us and the fact that our savings was dwindling. I'm used to our bank accounts getting replenished, you
know, periodically like that. But when you just see going down. And what I knew at the time was I needed somebody to employ me for me to earn money. But that was not happening. So I think all that pressure, it was hard. And one of the interviews I read you talked about stacking jobs that were almost like survival jobs, you know, call center by day, grocery, night shift, cargo unloading. I mean, it sounds like there was a real barrier if you're getting the kind of work you are
capable of. How does that affect your psychology when you realize. Realize that you're either not appreciated for your talents or if in some cases what I think also happened to you, there was some bias, the fact that. You were an immigrant, that impacted me on multiple levels. My body, for instance. Two of the three jobs that I did were more physical than mental. Also not being able to sleep well was a problem. I barely slept, I don't
know, four or five hours every day. And naturally that apart from the physical work that left me depleted, you know, energy wise as well. Sometimes I caught myself lashing out, just being irritable. Normally when you don't even sleep well, you are not okay. You're dealing with all these things. So it was tough on my mind. I wrestled with a, like, I battled not looking down on myself a lot. Where am I? What's going on? This is not what I look, you
know, look forward to. And that mental stress was what affected my psychology, I would say, because again, it affected my relationship with my wife, with my kids. The distance was already there and I knew a lot of it was just me, them as well, I guess because when push comes to shove, when you get in the, in the ring, you just don't know how you're going to respond. So I think I probably didn't respond well. But I'm a person of faith, so I knew this was not going to last
forever. The problem was, when is it going to end? And you mentioned in that the turning point came with the professional mentorship program. It sounds like the olive branch was somebody out there saying, I can help you get to where you want to go. And this is why I believe so much in mentoring and even sponsorship these days. So there was this organization that I got to know about them in 2012. What they did was their focus on was just on immigrant professionals like
myself. You spend three months in class, like you go in the morning and come back in the evening and they just take you through what does it mean to. To work here. Like all the soft skills and the expectations and the norms and so that once we have the right opportunity, we'll be able to fit in properly. It was really genuine. Like, these were people, they did nothing else. They just focused on us completely. They were with us from morning till
night and spending time with us. For me, that was a breath of like, fresh air. Now, you know, I could see somebody genuinely interested help trying to help me to succeed. And the other thing they did is after that classroom component being they go look out for opportunities for each and every one of us, no matter your background. They look for those opportunities, arrange interviews, and they won't stay with you in the interview. They don't talk, they don't
do anything, they just stay there. That was part of the contract. That was what opened the door for me. And with that, you were supposed to work in that organization for three months unpaid, but it was meant to be like a foot in the door kind of arrangement. Once I went in, mine was for, of course like every other person was three months. They handed over, I think three or four projects to me. Day one, when normally when you get to a new company, all they're doing
is these are vision, these are mission. There was no time for that. Just give me the project. Day four, my manager then, who's become a friend now, he just came to me and said, hey, what's your plan? What do you want? So I told them like, sure, I need a full time role. I said I want to hire you in four days. That changed everything and it revalidated my sense of self worth because I had already started to feel like maybe I'm just an
imposter. Maybe I actually didn't have the experience that I thought I had. How did it feel coming home and telling your wife and your kids that four days into this unpaid apprenticeship that you had locked in a full time job? It must have been quite a. It must be a wonderful conversation to have. I didn't know whether to cry, you know, suddenly I saw hope. It was just filled with joy. My kids couldn't really understand the difference though. It
was really my wife. I'm sure they saw something different in me because again, I'd gotten very moody, very rational, I would dare say. Because I remember one day, I always say this. Our first one who is 20 now, he was talking to my wife like I was there in the room. I was there. Why is he always frowning? He, he. That was me at the time. Of course that really got me down, like I was unhappy. But definitely going home was very exciting, very, very librating for me. My mental health was restored.
We returned depot. Bengkali and I talk about how much talent arise in Canada and what we need to do to unleash that talent. Hi, it's Tony Chapman. Investing in Canada. Well, that matters. To RBC. $500 billion in sustainable financing to combat climate change. $500 million for future launch a 10 year program to prepare youth for the jobs of tomorrow. Helping to discover the next generation generation of Olympians. Artists monetizing their talents. Woman entrepreneurs pursuing their dreams,
supporting mental health and so much more. Investing in Canada. Well, that matters to RBC. Dreams, we all have them. Having a dream in life can provide direction, motivation and a sense of purpose. I held the dream to build a great life in Canada and be a respected member of the society. It gave me energy. And when the opportunity came to fulfill that dream, it crashed and I burned. Joining me today is De Paul Benkali. It's his journey
starts at age 16 with a Canadian dream. Mid 30s, he arrives in Canada. That dream really manifests into a nightmare. There's somebody giving him a hand up versus a handout. He finds his way back. And today he's building bridges so that others can travel with less friction and more fuel. To fast forward the story a bit, because what I really love is this experience with this mentorship program.
Your experiences coming to Canada and hitting wall after wall, it led you to creating the immigrant life. So tell me about the immigrant life because I think it's just. I know about it, but tell my listeners about it because I think it's such a beautiful thing that you're doing because it's almost like you're trying to help others not to have the situation that you had. When I gone through stuff, I just want to share that experience with people.
I just want people to know just so that hopefully they can avoid my mistake. That was just it. So it's a place where I just share. For me, the key thing that differentiates what I do is authentic information. Because out there you could Google anything, like everything is online you find. But is it true? That's the question. People make stuff up, people exaggerate a lot. People, you know, all sort of things. So in our place, we. We just look for people who've been
through what we've gone through. People who, whatever stage of integration, level they are, they could share their ideas, including myself, of course. We just try to lie the path for others. And based on my experience, I came across this thing, Zig Ziglar's Wheel of Life. He says, for you to really thrive in life, you got to focus on this, this, this, this, all this, not just one area. So that's what we try to do so far. Now I've just expanded on that a little bit. I call that the core
focus on career. Your career, your work, your business. That's one of course on family, spiritual wellness, physical wellness, mental wellness, your social network, financial. Right, culture, money. We talk about money and all this, like, how do you make money, how do you give it, how do you multiply, how do you save it? Like all those kind of things. So that's all so for us, what we do is it represents a total being something that is not just work. Work is just one, just one part of it.
Because we feel for you to try, for you to be yourself, to reach your full potential, you got to grow in all these areas. What's in it for me is the joy of when I get messages from people, thank you, saying, oh, I almost gave up. But you know, that help, that relatable and they know it's genuine, right? Like it's real. It's not made up stuff. So. So your name came to me when I was talking to somebody at RBC and they said, you have to talk to Papo about Windmill microlending.
Windmill was definitely a strategic part of my journey. I was a client of Windmill at the time when I'd lost hope, when financially and mentally I was stressed out. I got a loan from them at that point where the rock bottom, I'm like, okay, what else do I need to do that I have not done? I found a course and I took it. I went into the
training. It brought back my confidence as well because I was able to have meaningful, engaging conversations, practical, even leading conversations in the training with people who were here, who were doing the kind of work I really wanted to do. It was a validation of my experience, of my expertise, of my training and everything like that. So that was what Windmill did for me. And in general, immigrants will struggle to find another
organization like Windmill. You get a low fixed interest rate to finance the whole process of integration. Currently it's at 6.7%. And it's not just the money beyond that, the moment you take that loan, you, you gain access to an organization that is filled with people who are out to help you succeed. That's huge. Knowing that somebody's with you on the journey, that takes out a lot of stress. You have one on one coaching with people. You become part of a community. They have this take.
You have up to like $15,000 that you can take from Windmill. Guess what? You can use that money for anything. Let's say you are in a low income job and the time you're going to spend on that job trying to make money will prevent you or will be a distraction for the exam you want to write, that sort of thing. Windmill allows you to actually leave that job, use part of the money, the loan you take to take care of your bills so that you can focus strategically on your exams, right? And
come back and then they don't take like no processing fee. What else do you really want with a One on one coach with mentors. It's really, really, that's windmill does I think over the last, since 2005, yeah, they've helped over 13,000 people. The income improvement for people who restart their careers is on the average about three times whatever they were earning before they took that loan. So for me, it's worth it. You talk about, you know, return
on investment. Let's talk about Canada. There's so much noise now about immigrants. How many immigrants should we have? Immigrants. What I want you to talk to the people listening is how important immigrants are to Canada and what Canada and Canadians need to do to give you that kind of opportunity where you're not only creating value for your life and your family, but also creating value for. Canada when it comes to immigrants. Yes, that argument will always be there.
At the end of the day, Canada has a challenge. And the challenge is that we have an aging population. What are we going to do about it? You know, people's pension needs to get paid, work needs to get done, people are retiring and all that. Who's going to do all these things? The birth rate of Canadians cannot keep up. It's established. There's nothing to argue
about there. So when immigrants, particularly those who have the skill sets that we need, when we're allowed to come in and access and be able to contribute to the, you know, to give back to the economy, it's huge today. RBC says under utilization of immigrants cost the Canadian economy $50 billion every year. That's 2019. It's costing us a lot more. 50 billion. What can we do with that?
For me, it's a win win for everybody. When immigrants come in in the right numbers, appropriately supported and equipped to thrive and succeed, the economy wins, the local community wins. Whatever amount of money we spend supporting these people like myself, we get it back through taxes. So what's, what's the loss there? What, what are we losing really? Nothing. You know, we talked about doctors in healthcare, but I can tell you, DePaul, I've been in so many Ubers
and I always talk to people about where they're from. I realize that I'm driving with somebody that ran a chemistry lab or was a physicist or used to be a professor, and all they can do right now is drive. There's nothing wrong with driving Uber, but they're not match their skill and their passion and their pursuit in Canada. And I have to believe that not only impacts them psychologically, it's not only a disservice to them. Once again, a disservice. To Canada because we need that type of skill
layer. I would even argue that this probably creates a bit of a revolving door. Well, if I can't get it here, I'm going to get it elsewhere. We just count how many people coming in. We think that's success, that's not success. Like what happens to people after they come in. We need to focus on actual, what I'll call like a skill utilization rate. For me, that is supposed to be measuring how many skilled immigrants are working in jobs that align with their level of education, field of
study and experience. It should be differentiated, you know, from people working in low wage jobs. Or we should be talking about is that whatever they are doing, is that a full match or is that partial match. Right. With whatever it is that they are doing, their expertise. And I think another thing we should also look at as a new metrics to use in measuring success is to track how many skilled immigrants actually remain in Canada over the long term. This is going to be a long time. Maybe five
years, 10 years, 15 years after landing. I think we need to be paying attention. There is a quiet exodus that is happening. Some studies that I saw before I think says about 15% of immigrants, they usually leave Canada within 20 years. But of recent there was another data that I saw that says about 30% of economic class newcomers like myself, they they're willing to live within two years. It's like pouring water into a basket after investing so much to even
get our water. So I think we need to start measuring this and paying attention to those things. Otherwise we'll find ourselves in worse crisis than necessary. Do I, do we have time for me to share just little story? Yeah, please, we've got lots of time. Yeah. You know about six years ago I had a life scare I would say and I had to go in for an unscheduled surgery. After the surgery I got assigned to a specialist who is a senior by the way. He told me he was retiring. This is a
very experienced person. When we have internationally trained physicians and we don't allow them to practice. There's multiple reasons for this like, but I just feel we need to simplify the process and support them and all that like things like this. Supporting missions like this will help ensure that more families can have personal physicians, can have access to surgeons. Again, it's proven data wise research. It's clear locally trained physicians cannot support Canadian
groups. It's not possible. So we have to fast track how do we ensure that the people that we've called that we've attracted. How do we ensure that we can support them to quickly get back to serving us? You know, DePaul, I always end my podcast with some three takeaways and the first one was you said, you know, my dream was always to be boundless. To leave my country and go to a place where I felt I could have a skip in the park and do whatever I did.
Everything that you talked about, getting ready for that movement, planning, you never know. Trust in your own ability to figure things out. What was sad to me is that when Canada opened his arms, instead of being boundless, if anything, you were chained, marginalized, you were dismissed because you maybe didn't have Canadian context. To me, the juxtaposition of bringing people in that have the courage to leave their homes and come to a new country. We shouldn't be putting handcuffs
on you. We should be giving you a springboard. The second thing is the word me, which is also the first two letters. A mentor. And so much initially of you was about how every day that you were in this country, you were losing your sense of me, your personality. All I've seen on your face is a smile, but there's your kid talking about your frown and you were losing your sense of
self worth. And it was wonderful when that mentor reached out and the mentor saw who me was and that you went from day four of what was going to be a 90 day unpaid internship, how it must have felt to have that job and know you're on your way is something we gotta be thinking about. As Canadians, we have to personalize this because the more we can give the me of the world a sense of who they are, the better we'll be
forward. And the last thing is this concept of return on investment. This return on investment that you made in yourself in terms of your preparation, this return on investment we certainly have seen when we set people up for success. It's a return on not only who they are and their dignity and their strength and their courage with their family, but also their community. And there's return on investment with windmills not measuring it
in terms of your typical risk and reward. What they're much more interested in is focusing on you taking risks to find your reward. All of those three things is a very interesting insight for me, is that let people be boundless when they come to Canada because you've done so much to get here, really put mentorship in place for people so that they feel that they have a helping hand. And the last thing is understand that their return on investment is going to be, collectively, Canada's return on
investment. Those are key takeaways for sure. What I'm also hoping for is that people, organizations, and even the Canadian government will support an organization like Windmill and more out there, because it just makes sense. Joining me now is Andrea Barrick. She's a senior VP of sustainability and impact at rbc. Andrea, welcome back to Chatter that Matters. Thanks, Tony. So great to be here again. So I want to talk
about one initiative, talking about Windmill Microlending. Not only what this organization does, but the fact that RBC has stepped in with a 5 million donation. Give me a sense of what's your take on what they're doing and why did you feel that it mattered to the point where you're willing to make such a donation? Yeah, Windmill is just such an impactful organization.
I think that is really at the center of solving a massive issue for Canadian prosperity, which is how do we better integrate newcomers who are skilled into our economy, which actually boosts all of our prosperity. Right. And creates the kind of communities that we all want to live in. It's almost like a micro finance sort of idea, is to say, you know, sometimes there are these gaps that in total monetary terms, you know, don't seem that large. For a bank, they're not
that large. But for individuals who've just come into country, they can feel insurmountable, make the difference on whether or not a newcomer can apply their skills and credentials and to our economy and to the jobs that we need here or not. And so they've got this ability to help sort of bridge that gap from a financing perspective. But what's sort of magic about it is they
don't just stop there. Right. They then say, well, what else is required to support that person through mentorship, through, you know, financial literacy and training, through helping to sort of integrate kind of culturally into the workplace here. What does that look like? Building networks that are really, really going to help someone to succeed. And so I think it is both filling the gap financially
and that wraparound that makes them so successful. The narrative in Canada, sadly, has in some ways turned against newcomers. The rhetoric is, it's, you know, overpowering our social net. We don't have the housing forum, but the other side of it is if we don't bring immigration in Canada, as a population will die off. What's your advice for my listeners? To realize that newcomers are really going to be the lifeblood of our future economy. And it's things like Windmill
that lets them hit the ground running. Yeah. And unfortunately, you know, anytime that you have a segment of the population where they're sort of all painted with the same brush, it's probably unhelpful. Right. And so we have newcomers that Windmill serves that are highly skilled professionals that have a real contribution to make to Canada if we can help them. We have also led in newcomers that don't have those skills and aren't contributing
as much to the economy. And in fact, you know, are seen as being more of a drag on the system. And so I think it's, like, not helpful for us to just sort of say, oh, all newcomers are sort of the same. They're not. Just as you and I are not the same. Canada has a rich history of bringing in highly skilled immigrants to help our economy in the areas where we need it the most. Windmill has tapped into that and said, how do we actually help them to bridge so that those skills can be
applied more quickly? I know you make a major impact working in the job you do at rbc. These are words of wisdom that we can all benefit from. So I appreciate you joining me in Chatter the Manor. Always nice to chat with you, Tony. Once again, a special thanks to RBC for supporting Chatter that Matters. It's Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening and let's chat soon.