Today was a very special day at EC Montreal. Anissa and Kinan from the Canadian Refugee Center came to deliver a presentation to our students. They spoke to us about all the wonderful initiatives the center has undertaken to help the population of new arrivals.
Kinan explained that the center started in 2016 and it is a Federal Government initiative under the Trudeau administration. They wanted a center that helped the new arrivals integrate into society and become active members of our community. The center provides three main areas of support; Academic, Social and Economic. In terms of academic, they help with language classes and IELTS preparation to prepare them for university studies. In terms of social, they have legal aid, community support, social groups and events and under the economic umbrella, they help them start businesses, develop business strategies and pursue other areas of interest such as art, programming, journalism, and many other fields. Kinan gave an example of one of their students who came up with a business idea to create your own hot sauce. The Refugee Center helped him to develop a business plan and launch the business called “Custom Heats”. The individual had only $2,000 to invest and after only 3 months had already made a net profit of $20,000! One of the conditions encouraged by the center is if any business thrives and expands, and there is a need for recruitment, they must hire a refugee! This keeps the positive cycle going and contributes to the Canada’s overall economic health.
There is a misconception that refugees are a drain on our economy, however the opposite is true. They enter the workforce very quickly and are able to contribute in income taxes and increasing their disposable incomes.
Kinan explained that they use state of the art vendors and services to help in all aspects of the organization. For example; they work with an app called luna.ai. It is an app that use voice activation features to assist people in completing government forms and other documents that are challenging. It is available in multiple languages and is a smart app that helps to spot errors and discrepancies within the completed forms.
Kinan also talked about the many programming workshops offered at the center as well as the Hackathon initiative that brings the community together in solving tech problems. They will be launching their 3rd Hackathon in November 2019. Anissa and Kinan encouraged our EC Montreal students to get involved with the Refugee center and to go visit them so we can build an even stronger bridge between EC Montreal and the center.
They also invited us to participate in the annual soccer tournament taking place on June 30. EC Montreal definitely wants to participate and will try to get a team together throughout the month so we can contribute to the much needed social element of the Refugee Center.
The students seemed to have really enjoyed the presentation. They were nodding along, smiling and seemed genuinely impressed.
EC Montreal is planning a fundraiser for the Canadian Refugee Center on Thursday, June 13. It will be a whole day of giving! We want to help the center continue all the amazing work they are doing!
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