ESL students find common ground unearthing story of Black Canadian WWI soldier cbc.ca 3 days ago Christine Maki When 15-year-old Khalid Abdi was asked to investigate the life of a Canadian soldier from 100 years ago, he wasn't super excited about the class project at first. Growing up in Somalia, Abdi had always felt bored by history. But the English as a Second Language (ESL) student at Glebe Collegiate Institute in Ottawa soon realized he and this soldier had something in common. "Pretty much, my life and his life [are] the same," said Abdi, who came to Canada with his family in December of 2019. Abdi soon discovered his own experience of Somalia's ongoing civil war helped him relate to Harry Timothy Jones, a member of Canada's only all-Black First World War battalion.