Do Local Good is a podcast created by United Way of the Alberta Capital Region and the team of volunteers on the GenNEXT Cabinet. We feature stories and people from the Edmonton region to inform, inspire, and invite others to join us in building resilient and thriving communities. Listen in to learn about some of the local good already happening, and how you can be a part of the force for good!
INTRO
[Alex] Hello there everyone! My name is Alex Bedard and this is United Way’s Peace Out Poverty podcast, where we discuss social issues in the Alberta Capital Region. Today we’ll be discussing women immigrating to Canada and their access to supports here in the Edmonton area, and how you as a listener can help out. But this isn't any normal episode of peace out poverty. No, today we have a cohost who is coming to us from Women United, another United Way affinity group. I’d like to give a very warm welcome to Cheryl Whitelaw.
[Cheryl] Hi Alex! Thanks for the introduction, it’s great to be on the show for this special episode. I have about 15 years of experience working in the space of immigrant integration to Canada; one of the highlights of I have accomplished in that sector is developing greater intercultural competence with the team at the NorQuest Center for Intercultural Education (which is now called the Colbourne Institute for Inclusive Leadership). I’m also an innovation partner for the Edmonton Region Immigrant Employment Council, that connects immigrants to business leaders to support their career transition to Edmonton. I also volunteer with Women United, it’s what we call an Affinity group, which is a group of people focused on a particular cause and they have opportunity to engage in that cause through multiple ways. For Women United this means we engage women and allies around the issues facing women and girls.
[Alex] The work you’ve done for our community is astounding, Cheryl. That being said, with your knowledge and experience in this area, can you help our listeners understand the word intersectionality better? I know that it’s a word used quite frequently in the social sector, and this episode is a great example of it!
[Cheryl] when we talk about the word intersectionality, it means that we are looking at the aspects of a person's life that makes their identity unique. And so In today's episode, for example, we'll be talking about three things that make up someone's identity: identifying as a woman, being an immigrant, and their social classification in society.
[Alex] Perfect, thank you so much for clarifying that for us. Today we're going to be looking at how women who have just come to Canada as immigrants are able to access resources that help lift them out of poverty and integrate into Canadian life. For women and gender-diverse people, poverty is caused by unique factors and leads to unique outcomes. It’s grounded in sexism, gender-based discrimination and often interrelated forms of barriers to resources.
[Cheryl] Speaking of having access to resources, we interviewed one of United Way’s partnered organizations, the Edmonton Mennonite Center for newcomers. We also have a guest from Women United, who has accessed similar resources when she first came to Canada. Let's start off by hearing from our guest Maritza talk a little about her initial experience in Canada, and Women United.
Maritza: My name is Maritza Velasco-Valencia. I have a computer science degree and a software engineering master's degree, and I work in the business technology field as a project and product manager. Women United is an opportunity for community-minded people to come together and take an action to support women and girls that are experiencing poverty or at risk of failure, falling in poverty.
Maritza: Which I identified very much with because I've gone through that situation. Based on all the statistics where women are more prone to be in poverty than men, by helping a woman, you help an entire family. That's something I really believe. So our Women United program is part of a global initiative delivered by United Way.
Maritza: When we moved to Canada, we arrived to London, Ontario. We were very lucky to find and have access to many social programs than we knew of. And the place in the social program actually that opened our eyes to all the programs available to us was when we arrived to a shelter.
Maritza: In London, Ontario, we actually arrived to a shelter for immigrants where we stayed for the first few months. The shelter had, as part of their staff, a case worker who guided us about what our very first steps should be as a newcomer looking for a refugee status, because it is very different. Like if you come as a immigrant seeking another status, different than refugee, right? She help us locate in the school for our kids. She help us with many, many contact information of the services that we needed to reach out to be able to go through the process. And sometimes she even made an appointments and went to the appointments with us because our English at the time was very limited.
Maritza: She was our guide in our new world during our very two, three months in Canada. Then we had us another service available to us, the legal advice that the government provide to immigrants that seek refugee status here. We were contacted with an immigrant lawyer to submit our refugee paperwork and to go through the process.
Maritza: He help us in this process from the beginning to the end, and this was a service fully funded by the government. Another service was the food bank. They were our saviors many, many times. Let me tell you, we had some help coming from the government every month, monetary help, but it was so little that it hardly lasted to covering food.
Maritza: So the food bank was one of those very important services we reach out to. Then through the church we used to go to, we got match with a Canadian family who became our mentor, about how to live in Canada. They were the very, very first Canadians to become our friends and let me tell you, I hold them very close to my heart.
[Alex] Recent census results indicate that immigrants are more likely to live in poverty than non-immigrants in Canada. So it was crucial for our friend Maritza to be connected to these resources. In addition, immigrant unemployment rates for people who have lived in Canada for 5 years or less is still found to be substantially more than people born in Canada, with rates found to be higher than the national unemployment average.
[Cheryl] And Unfortunately Alex, poverty can be a “transient and inevitable part of the resettlement process,” and this likelihood is due to a variety of factors such as: the immigrant’s knowledge of French or English, level of education, and social network in Canada. That being said, We're lucky to have organizations like the Edmonton Mennonite Center for newcomers here in Edmonton to alleviate some of the hardships of moving to Canada. Alex and I spoke to our next guest Marion to see what the EMCN is all about.
Marion: My name's Marion Mendoza. I am one of two facilitators for the IWIN program. IWIN stands for Immigrant Women's Integration Network. And so I've been facilitating this program for five years now. And that's my main role at E M C N.
Marion: So there's four main areas of support at EMCN: employment, settlement, community development and language. So those are kind of our four main areas and under those areas, they're kind of like umbrellas. So each of those four areas have many, many different programs under each of those areas.
Marion: All newcomers, access all of those four programs and all of those different areas under each umbrella, but particularly for IWIN, just to give you a little bit of a description about our program also is that our program is what we describe a bit of a balance between an employment readiness program as well as an women's empowerment program.
Marion: So half of it is kind of teaching the women those kind of resources that they need to enter the workforce in Canada. So, things like how to do Canadian resume, cover letter, what kind of questions they ask in a Canadian interview, all those things. And then also learning about the Canadian culture, which is a bit tricky to define. But really it truly, it's about connecting women to one another coming from all over the world. Hopefully boosting their self-esteem, their confidence completely changes over the six weeks that the program is. And many women do find jobs so some of these women are actively looking for work, but some of the women come to the program with that not even being a goal in mind right now. They just want the resources and the connection.
[Cheryl] I think it's wonderful that the EMCN has focused on four areas of immigration in their IWIN program. Now if we are to look at Employment, which is essential For the immigrants who have just arrived to Canada, people who have cultivated equivalent knowledge, experience and education in their home country are sometimes unable to find a job that matches their expertise, let alone finding a job, and that’s a real challenge, Alex.
[Alex] That's right, Cheryl. Further to that, some research shows that In order to accommodate domestic responsibilities, many women work in part-time, seasonal, contract, temporary, or otherwise precarious jobs. Three-quarters (75.8 per cent) of those working part-time in Canada were women in 2015, and one-quarter of women working part-time said the reason was caring for children, compared to 3.3 per cent of men. Marion explains some of the struggles these women face in the job market.
Marion: This is the unfortunate part of, you know, a lot of newcomers, like I previously mentioned, right, is not being able to work in those professions that they wanted to.
Marion: Now, one of the biggest reasons why they end up doing these kind of entry level jobs is simply because they don't have the Canadian experience. And so my frustration and a lot of us working in the community is how can you gain that Canadian experience if no one's willing to give you the chance?
Marion: So unfortunately a lot of employers are still looking for that thing on the resume that says that they took a certificate or they're post-secondaries from, you know, accredited university, somewhere in Canada. But for the majority of the newcomers that come here, it's from back home. So for our program, we often talk about what we call survival jobs or transitional jobs.
Marion: Now the supports that we give them and in the conversations that we have, particularly in IWIN, is that, you know, how can you, going back again about transferrable skills, identifying your transferrable skills, number one, but also if you have the end goal in wanting to get back into your profession, what are some kind of positions, either volunteer or paid work, what are some jobs that you can do in the meantime that help to really highlight those transferrable skills? So a good example I have is, one of the ladies we had in our class, she was a nurse back home. Always wanted to be a nurse in Canada, but she just didn't know how to get there.
Marion: And so she said, you know, what can I do? I don't wanna work at Walmart forever, so what do you think I should do? And I said, well, have you ever thought about being a healthcare aid? This is the path my own mom took when she came from the Philippines. And so I said, what about being a healthcare aide? Have you ever thought about that?
Marion: And she said, I've never even heard of that before. So we kind of explored the option. And she was able to get a diploma and she became a healthcare aide. And she hasn't stopped because she realized actually there's a lot of the similar skills I was doing back home as a nurse, but I can work now. It didn't take me as long to re-certify as a nurse and I actually love being a healthcare aide.
Marion: So kind of encouraging the women that yes, you might not have your position that you had back home, but what are some steps that you can take to doing something similar where you're still using those skills and still feeling confident in that profession that you worked so hard to get into back home.
[Alex] Maritza talks about how even having a masters degree from her home country was sometimes not enough to gain the respect from her colleagues and fellow citizens that she deserved, and how being a woman also effects employment.
Maritza: We don't get opportunity always to go and have those full-time jobs. And as women we are paid lower and many times we don't have the same opportunities for advance advancement and depending on the job, and especially if you in working part-time jobs, you may don't have even benefits, right? And no health benefits.
Maritza: I remember reading a statistical study that says that definitely women are more likely than men to experience poverty. And the study, looked at Canadians and it suggests that 16% of Canadians could be categorized as a struggling economically. And it shows that 60% of those in the struggling category are women while the 40% are men.
Maritza: And that's a big difference. And in the study they say that definitely it shows that immigrants definitely tend to experience increases in poverty rates.
Maritza: I was a very successful professional in Colombia with the management position, but I didn't know the English at all when, when I left the country. And coming to Canada with no English, it is like starting in kindergarten again. It's like you feel that your brain has so much to process and you can express it because you don't know how. And when you don't know the English and you try so hard to express things, there are many people that just reject you. Ignore you. The face expression about what is she's saying. My accent still very strong it's never going to change. And I am still learning the language every single day. That is a very, very hard feeling. And as a woman, I work in a men's environment. At the beginning I confess, it was really, really hard to gain the respect that I have today in my job.
Maritza: But I had to put a lot of myself, a lot. My attitude was one of the most important things. Keep always positive attitude. Keep always motivating myself and learning and dont thinking that those barriers were going to stop me to continue growing and feeling always better and I'm part of this community that I love so much today. At the beginning it was a barrier and I overcome it by reading a lot in English. The very, very first decision that I made to recover my professional position, especially, was to don't have contact with my Hispanic community.
Maritza: It's sad. It's very sad. It's very sad that I gave that up. I gave that up because, because I knew I wanted my professional life back. And it's emotional to talk about this even if it is 20 years after. But at the same time, today, I have recovered my professional life, and more, and I found another family. I have found friends and I have people that I considered family that has been my chosen family, and they are all Canadians. They're all Canadians. I have couple friends that are from Colombia. From Colombia. That one I met here, and the other one is somebody that lives in Calgary now. We live very close and we went through all the refugee process in London, together. And those are my two special friends from Colombia.
Maritza: And I know the Colombian community here is very big, but I really don't interact much with them. But the reason was that decision I made 20 years ago to immerse myself in the language, in the English language, to learn it and to be able to recover my professional life, not only for me, but for my kids, because a woman is the pillar of the family and I wanted to ensure that I was able to provide for them and be an example for them, for sure.
[Alex] Supports and services that are readily available, accessible, and responsive to their needs can help immigrant and refugee women settle successfully in Canada.
[Cheryl] A study conducted in 2011 suggested that the length of time in Canada impacted the rate that immigrant women seek help. Immigrant women experiencing violence; (women who have lived in Canada for more than 10 years) had help-seeking rates similar to the women in the general population. Maritza had mentioned that her saving grace was being able to connect to people who were already established in Canada and also connecting with people who were experiencing the same thing that she was.
Maritza: So moving to a different country can affect your mental health. You may feel very lonely and without a support group. And by connecting immigrant womens with other immigrant women, we learn from each other's experiences. We support each other and we ensure that not only us but our families really have a good basis to succeed in our new country that we want to call home.
[Cheryl] Although some immigrants such as Maritza have valuable assets and supports such as intrafamilial ties and supportive communities that could help their transition to Canadian life, many new immigrants end up being completely isolated. Not only can this impact their access to employment and resources but also their psychological health. Maritza tells us more about trying to fit into a Canadian life.
Maritza: We are in the world and when you are an immigrant in a foreign country, there is always going to be discrimination. Even if you love the place where you are, even if you fight against everything that comes your way, that doesn't allow you to progress and grow in the country that you chose to be your new home. Just feeling that you don't fit a hundred percent in that's new society. It doesn't feel that you don't belong ,right? You don't belong a hundred percent. When you go to your home country and you know you fit perfect, you are familiar with everything, but sometimes you don't understand the language and the idioms that you are listening from your nieces and from your nephews and from the youngest generations that you love so much and you really want to keep in contact with, that is hard.
[Alex] A great way to mitigate this feeling of identity loss is to have women who are immigrating to Canada all connect with each other, and share their culture amongst one another, because while they sometimes may be coming from different countries their experiences are sometimes familiar to one another. This helps to create a good base community and sense of belonging for these women and their many cultures. Let's listen in as Marion shares the story of a woman she worked with at the Mennonite Center who was a veterinarian in China for 20 years prior to immigrating to Canada .
Marion: So there's a lot of reasons why Edmonton helps to connect women and there's a ton of different reasons. Now, I would say that as women come to Edmonton in Canada, just in general, they really do bring a ton of experience, knowledge, and cultural diversity. By connecting women, we definitely enabled them to share these stories, that's actually my favorite part of doing IWIN, is hearing not just their individual stories, but also hearing the other women say, "oh my goodness, me too!" But they're from completely different parts of the world. It's incredible. Also as we empower and support women in the end, really what we do is also support their families as well.
Marion: So that's an incredible connection too. And then it encourages also, intercultural relationships. So really what that means, is that they, you know, recognize that they're different in certain ways culturally, but truly it's a way for them to celebrate these differences and that to me, is one of the best parts of connecting these women.
[Cheryl] While there are definitely struggles that come from immigrating to a new country, we also find that there are some incredible stories of triumph that have come from women in the IWIN program, stories of hope, Let's listen in as Marion shares the story of a woman she worked with at the Mennonite Center who was a veterinarian in China for 20 years prior to immigrating to Canada.
Marion: She immigrated here and, you know, she ended up working in a customer service job for, you know, a few years because she just didn't know what else to do. And so before she got her customer service job, she attended IWIN because she thought, well, I was a vet back home, I'm never gonna do that here? I raised my children here. I've been a stay-at-home mom. No one's gonna hire me. And so really getting to know her, I said, is that something you wanna do? And she said, honestly, not really. I think I'm done with that. And I said, let's talk about your strengths. What are some things that you feel really confident in? And she said, well, you know, I really like to talk to people. I guess I'm good at that. And so in the end, she ended up working as a customer service person, just like at a department store. Ended up being a manager and then she retired from there. So she just, just to see her journey and doing something completely different, but loving it, is amazing. So it just goes to show that even if you had this goal in mind and you didn't necessarily achieve it, it doesn't mean that that's a bad thing.
[Alex] Hearing about these programs that are funded by United Way and their success stories makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Maritza also wanted to share some advice with other new Canadians that she gained after her experience immigrating. Let's hear what she has to say.
Maritza: Well other than ensuring that, that they have a, a warm winter coat when they come to Canada, or that they come to Canada in the summer. I would say that Edmonton has many ways to help and support immigrants. Like this city is very inclusive and you will find almost anything you want to, but only if you look for it.
Maritza: And I want to emphasize on that, because when you immigrate to another country, the worst thing that you can do is don't go out there. So my advice is don't be shy because I was a little shy for a short period of time. Go out and ask questions. Share your experiences to help, help other in your same, in your same situation, and choosing Edmonton as your home city was for sure one of the key decisions, that we made. It will be one of the key decisions in your life. So reach out, go to United Way or to one of the other many agencies that know where to find social agencies, where you can find support and guidance. And I will assure you that you will always find somebody there willing to help you.
[Cheryl] And while help can always be found at organizations like United Way and EMCN, Marion has some closing statements on how we can be more welcoming and inclusive to immigrants.
Marion: Particularly speaking from, you know, the perspective of someone who does the program that we do, there's lots of things that I have in my mind, but something that I would love listeners to kind of keep in mind, is that if you're a business owner or if you are willing to give newcomers and particularly women, the chance to get that Canadian experience that a lot of employers are looking for, I think it would make a huge difference for women and newcomers to get out of isolation, hopefully get out of depression, which is just so common amongst women, immigrant women. And so whether it's paid work or volunteer work, I think that these newcomers and women would really benefit from kind of gaining that experience. And in the end, really their goal is to contribute to Canadian society, which is really their dream. So that would be my biggest hope is that employers, business owners, would have an open mind and, and give people a chance to gain that Canadian experience.
[Cheryl] And here’s Maritza with a final call to action.
Maritza: I'm pretty sure that this podcast won't be listen only by immigrants, but many other people. Being a part of United Way is not only for immigrants, anyone can join United Way. Anyone, not only women by allies can join Women United. If you decide or you are not in, okay. I may not want to join a committee or a cabinet or be part of United Way to donate your time, consider giving donations, monetarily speaking because I really think that is part of a social responsibility to work to ensure that no one in our community is left behind through challenging times. Keep in mind always that women are very important pillar in society. There are many ways that people can help.
Maritza: Again, it could be donating your times, sporadically. Donating money or by becoming a member of one of our cabinets, you can change lives and you can support life-changing programs and services that help thousands of people just like me and my family. I am here because of the help I got from all these entities and there are thousands of people out there that need that help.
CONCLUSION
[Cheryl] I hope that this episode has inspired you as the listener to become more cognizant of some of the struggles that women face when immigrating to the Alberta Capital Region. Donating and volunteering your time with United Way helps to make sure that we can keep these programs running. I also want to thank our guests for sharing their stories and being vulnerable with sharing their experiences.
[Alex] This has been Peace Out Poverty. This episode was hosted by Cheryl Whitelaw and myself, Alex Bedard. Interviews were conducted by Renée Chan and Feven Worede. This episode was produced by Castria. Women United is a growing movement of more than 70,000 women around the world dedicated to creating equal opportunity for all. Locally, this network of strong female philanthropists and their allies brings people together to create lasting social change.
GenNEXT is a volunteer committee of United Way of the Alberta Capital Region. If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can be a part of the plan to end poverty, visit MyUnitedWay.ca.