By Christa Van Daele
Published in March 2005
The Working Centre’s crowded seminar rooms and meeting areas at 43 Queen and 58 Queen have witnessed a bubbling up of activities – discussion, writing, focused life history conversation, and sometimes debate — among the New Canadians who visit to learn more about how they might move forward their lives and professions in Canada. Their needs, as documented in both the mainstream media and here in Good Work News, are urgent. Whether the adult education experiences occur in the group learning framework of Focus on Health Care or Accounting, or an intensive conversation – the ongoing idea is to expand the networks of committed people in diverse pockets of the community.
Who are these linked networks? What do they do for highly trained New Canadians who are so stuck as they try to move ahead from a “survivor job”? Generous mentors, willing to give of their time and expertise, have turned up quietly, without a lot of fanfare, in the public and private sector.
For example, a Working Centre counsellor’s helpful email correspondence with an accounting manager at Sun life Clarica, was able to link an individual to a financial investment company in Waterloo – without ever meeting that helpful and persistent email buddy. In another exchange, an accounting specialist from China was able to gain a foothold in related employment. A “breakthrough” first job, we have found, flows nicely from such relationships, whatever the sector or industry.
This is the human chain of helpfulness we hope to continue to build among New Canadians and helpful working professionals in Kitchener –Waterloo. Health care, engineering, teaching, and other professions – all are ambitious professional paths that feature lengthy training, immersion into a Canadian workplace culture, and tough re-credentialling steps, as well the need for real life mentors with “inside information.” The barriers are well known to most, as are the depressing statistics. Provincially, more formal bridging programs are beginning to be funded to accelerate the process.
Locally, our Working Centre data tells us that the dream of “related work” for New Canadians is starting to come true, after two years of intensive start-up efforts in this area. Of 49 individuals who have registered in these support networks, 6 are employed in their profession or licensed, 10 are in related work and 22 are in the necessary related studies. Behind these outcomes are the linked networks of helpful and imaginative citizens who have gone the extra mile within their company or agency to link up a New Canadian with a specific workplace, job shadow, or clinical observation opportunity.
