EDUCATORS

Zdenka ACIN is a recognized expert in immigration, refugee, and citizenship law. She is the President and Founder of Immigra International as well as the Continuing Professional Development Center (CPDC). She holds the designation of Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant (RCIC, Class L3 RCIC-IRB - Unrestricted Practice) as a member in good standing of the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants (CICC). Firstly, as an accredited and awarded interpreter and translator for 4 languages and, afterwards, as an immigration consultant and an educator, Zdenka has been working and collaborating with the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC, renamed into IRCC), and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) since 2003, what gives her an extraordinary experience, and an extensive knowledge of immigration and refugee process from inside these crucial governmental institutions. At the IRB alone, Zdenka participated at an extensive number of hearings in various settings. At the Refugee Protection Division (RPD): hearings of refugee claims based on the all grounds of persecution for the reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group - including persecution based on sexual orientation, domestic violence; hearings of vulnerable persons / gender-based claims; and political opinion. At the Immigration Division (ID): admissibility hearings and detention review hearings. At the Immigration Appeal Division (IAD): hearings of rejected family class sponsorship appeals; removal orders of permanent residents and protected persons appeals; a residency obligation appeals; Minister’s appeals; and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). Zdenka had worked as a professor at four prestigious colleges in Toronto and Vancouver. Her extraordinary passion for teaching and commitment to justice has been reflected in the course that she created and taught at George Brown College under the name War Crimes Against Women/ Women and War with the focus on the atrocities against women, children and innocent civilians, and on the legal instruments of ending impunity (i.e.: the Geneva Convention; the Rome Statute; The International Criminal Court; ad hoc tribunals: The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone). Thus, she is well informed of these international legal proceedings as well. As a profoundly and uniquely passionate about immigration and refugee issues, with a deep commitment to education for over 10 years, and as a student-centred and student-oriented educator, Zdenka has received several awards for Excellence in Teaching of Immigration Consultant Diploma Program, which she created as a content expert at Herzing College, and revolutionized at Academy of Learning College, where she worked not only as a faculty but also as a Chair of Immigration Consultant Diploma Program. Zdenka is a Mentor of new immigration consultants in the CICC newly established mandatory 6-month Mentorship Program. She is also an educator of the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) seminars, which are the prerequisite for the renewal of all immigration consultants’ membership in good standing with the CICC, which also serve as an additional learning process to expend the professional knowledge of all regulated immigration consultants pertaining to immigration, refugee and citizenship law in order to enable them to practice competently, ethically, and in the best interest of their clients. Additionally, Zdenka is a preparatory tutor for the CICC RCIC Entry-to-Practice Licensing Exam as well as for the CICC-IRB Specialization Exam, while as a faculty at Ashton College she is teaching immigration and refugee courses of Immigration Legal Assistants Diploma Program. Zdenka graduated in philosophy from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade. She is the author of two published books: “Neither Voice of God nor Voice of State” and “I Renounce Revenge”, pertaining to film, theatre and literature in exile. She is also a poet, short story writer and essayist. Her talents extend to acting, so she is a full member of ACTRA (the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists). Being a well-travelled researcher and documentary filmmaker, she visited over 60 countries worldwide. In her former country, Yugoslavia, Zdenka was a prominent human rights activist, editor-in-chief, journalist, TV author, and host of the talk show PRESS Club, what brought her into exile in Canada on June 15, 1999. Zdenka is a mother of two sons and grandmother of four grandchildren. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.