Nineteen-year-old Edona Besnik Caku had never been to a public school until she came to Toronto's York Memorial Collegiate Institute five years ago.

It's odd enough for the Albanian teenager to see her classmates in baggy pants and tight tops with feet dangling on their desks, not to mention sitting next to kids who came in all colours and from all backgrounds.

"Albania is a very homogeneous country. When you have everyone coming from the same background, you all tend to think the same. You tend not to appreciate those who do not conform," said Caku, winner of the 2005 New Pioneers Youth Award.

"It's no cliché. In a diverse society, you challenge your own ideas and really learn to disregard the issue of ethnic and religious differences, and discover the essence of humanity."

Life took a 180-degree turn for Caku and her two younger sisters in 2000 when they followed their parents — mother, a lawyer, and father, a university professor — to flee political instability back home.

From a monster luxury home, they packed themselves into a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto and started learning English.

"In Albania, we had a big house. Everybody knew who my parents were. Here we had to start from zero. We're nobody," noted Caku, who is now in her second year of the medical radiation sciences program offered through the University of Toronto and the Michener Institute.

Caku, who speaks French and Italian, knew she needed a good command of English in order to excel in school. She spent a year in ESL and stayed in the library after school every day to listen to English tapes and read grammar books.

"I used to speak English with a thick accent and people would judge me on that. They'd label me, `Oh, you're an immigrant,'" Caku said.

"The irony is now I got rid of my accent and people thought that I was born here. But that's not true for my Asian friends, who were born here and speak perfect English. So because I'm Caucasian, I am more Canadian?"

That's when Caku decided to devote more of her time to the school's anti-racism club and other activities such as mentoring, tutoring and a national student exchange program.

In university, Caku, who graduated high school with a 94 per cent average, founded the Friends of Albania Student Association to undertake humanitarian projects in Albania.

She also worked jointly with the Herbert H. Carnegie Future Aces Foundation and the Friends of Toronto Reference Library to donate 4,000 books to her destroyed hometown library in Shkoder.

"I've learned the big challenge of changing your life. As immigrants, you open the door of opportunity without knowing what is going to happen. And I think that's what has transformed me into an independent person," said Caku, who will travel to South Africa this summer to volunteer with an HIV/AIDS project.

"I'm not afraid of challenges. Failing is great. You learn so much more about yourself when you fail. And success just tastes that much more sweeter because it doesn't come easy."