Canadian Lawyer 4Students

Spring 2011

Life skills and career tips for Canada's lawyers in training

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BY OLIVIA D'ORAZIO Q uestions have always had a foothold in Lwam Ghebre- hariat's life. As an actor, he engages himself in inter- esting, and sometimes downright con- troversial works, like Out the Window and last summer's Homegrown, a play centred around one member of the ter- rorist group dubbed the Toronto 18. He asked questions throughout his under- graduate degree at the University of Al- berta, where he majored in philosophy. And now, as he fi nishes his fi nal year at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law, the only question leſt for Ghebre- hariat is: what's next? Ghebrehariat was born in Edmonton in 1982. His parents immigrated to Canada from Eritrea, a small African country that declared its independence from Ethiopia in 1993. He went to an arts-based high school in Alberta where, as a shy kid, he was drawn to drama. "I had some drama teachers who encouraged me, who gave me opportunities and I think that put me on a path." Right aſt er high school, he moved to Montreal to study acting at the National Th eatre School of Canada. At 21, Ghebre- 22 SPRING 2 0 1 1 hariat returned to Alberta. Feeling young and inexperienced, he decided to go back to school, enrolling at the University of Al- berta. "My parents always emphasized ed- ucation," he says. "I convinced my parents that going to theatre school was a good idea, but I also made an unoffi cial deal with my dad that I'd still go to university." Having leſt home so young, Ghebreha- riat says he felt the need to reconnect with his family and learn more from his par- ents. He developed an interest in his fam- ily's culture. "I came home one summer and my mother was writing her autobiog- raphy in Tigrinya," he says. "We translated it together into English." He won a posi- tion at the University of Alberta's Canada Research Chair Humanities Computing Studio. His project cumulated in a web site (crcstudio.org/eritrean) devoted to the translation and archiving of Eritrean folk tales. "It was a chance for me to learn from my parents about the culture that they grew up in," he says. However, his start at the University of Alberta wasn't as clear and focused as his web site. "I found myself skipping biology classes to sit in on philosophy classes and I think part of it was that I was looking for C ANADIAN Lawy er 4STUDENTS a moral compass, trying to fi gure out what am I going to do with my life." Realizing that philosophy is a fi eld where these ques- tions are oſt en brought up, Ghebrehariat switched his major. He liked his studies, but his questions weren't being answered. "Phi- losophy doesn't answer questions," he says. "It sort of raises even more questions." Regardless, Ghebrehariat was able to fi gure out what his interests were and where he wanted to go next. "I wanted to help people with the work that I do," he says. "I had actually met a lawyer while I was in theatre school . . . and he planted this seed in my head. Th e most interesting things that I had done up to that point in- volved the law." While in theatre school, Ghebrehariat had several roles in the school's produc- tion of Th e Laramie Project, a play based on interactions and interviews with a small community following the murder of a young gay man. "I realized that theatre is connected to social issues," he says. "And that's the kind of work that I want to do." Th e fi nal decision to enter law school was drawn from a situation that Ghebre- hariat was involved in while studying in Alberta. "I was a witness in a criminal case. * DRAMA A courtroom Lwam Ghebrehariat's interests in acting and philosophy all come together with a career in law. OLIVIA D'ORAZIO

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