Imagine moving to a new city, in a new country – your knowledge of the language, and local customs, is minimal – and all this is taking place during a worldwide pandemic!
South Okanagan Immigrant & Community Services is there to help.
“Imagine moving to a foreign country – and you have to self-isolate for two weeks, without knowing anyone,” said Elmira Galiyeva with SOICS, and coordinator of LIP, which stands for Local Immigration Partnership. “Some people are struggling with extending their Visas, because they only give you half a year to immigrate.
“It’s challenging.”
LIP is a community-based partnership that brings together representatives from a wide range of sectors – such as government, business, community services, financial institutions, education, libraries and health - to develop and implement a settlement and integration strategy for newcomers to the region.
LIPs have four objectives:
Support better coordination in the planning and delivery of integration services across multiple sectors;
Provide a framework to facilitate collaboration and develop and implement community-based strategic plans;
Strengthen local integration capacity to foster labour market access, social inclusion, and sustainable welcoming communities;
Achieve improved outcomes as indicated by increased economic, social political and civic participation by newcomers.
“What we do is, we have work groups focusing on certain areas, like employment, language and social integration. We have one group, and I like the name of it, called Welcoming Community – and one of our projects was developing a welcome guide for the whole region that includes free services in the communities, such as mental health, housing and transportation supports,” explained Galiyeva. “We also have a list of ethnically-specific grocery stores and restaurants.”
Another project is supplying an employer toolkit to help businesses find immigrant employees – which explains how to hire them without discrimination, and how to make sure immigrants are happy in their new role.
“A lot of businesses are interested in that, especially in the hospitality sector, and in construction, because they need people,” said Galiyeva.
Currently, there are 19 LIPs across BC and 76 LIPs across Canada supported by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada.
The South Okanagan-Similkameen Local Immigration Partnership encompasses the complete region including the municipalities of Summerland, Penticton, Okanagan Falls, Oliver, Osoyoos, Cawston, Keremeos, and Princeton.
“Our council is about 15 members right now, and we are always looking for new people who are interested in this kind of work.”
Another project Galiyeva and her staff are working on is called an Inclusive Workplace Charter.
“It’s not just focusing on immigrants - but focusing on various community groups that experience vulnerabilities - such as people with a disability, or seniors, who can have difficulty finding sustaining employment,” explained Galiyeva. “The idea of this charter is to provide steps for each business to implement in order to reach a certain level. Maybe you do something simple like have a breast-feeding place, or a prayer room, or accessible space for people with disabilities.
“We’re trying to see if people would be interested in all this, because we need champions to implement it.”
To check out the Local Immigration Partnership strategic plan, click here.
To connect with Galiyeva, click here
