What are the Challenges Faced By Newcomers

By -

Three newcomers to Canada share their some of their experiences as newcomers and hopes for the future.

Regent Park and the surrounding areas of the downtown east are home to many diverse communities with immigrants making up approximately 67% of the population. Integrating into Canadian society is a goal both for the newcomer and the community they find themselves in.

RPTV News reporter Mahsa Alikhani, a recent newcomer to Canada herself, speaks with Abdullah, Liene, and Rashed about their experiences. Not only were these newcomers faced with the normal challenges of setting up their lives in a new surrounding, dealing with language, finding employment, housing, accessing services, getting around, learning the new culture and customs, but they had to manage all that while dealing with the restrictions imposed on them by the coronavirus safety protocols.

Unanimously our newcomers Abdullah, Liene, and Rashed identified that learning the language, finding work, and connecting with the social and cultural ways of life in their new surrounds are extremely challenging, but that all of these have been further exacerbated by the restrictions caused by the pandemic.

Another hurdle faced by many newcomers is that often the education and work experience they had in their home country is not recognised in Canada. For example Abdullah who is from Sudan, was an electrical engineer back home with nine years of experience in the field. While Liene holds a master’s degree in International Management, and Rashed who is from Saudi Arabia, graduated from university as physiotherapist.

Unfortunately, finding work in their respective fields may take time and effort, and as is often the case, newcomers must retrain and find more immediate sources of employment that may not fully reflect their education or experience.

To watch the full video:
https://youtu.be/qrqFCMD8e6I


Written by
Dimitrije Martinovic

Journalist
FOCUS Media Arts Centre

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Regent Park Portrayed in Film and Television

By -
Image
Toronto has a rich history of being a go-to shooting location for many television and film production companies. Some notable films shot here over the years include Good Will Hunting (1997), Billy Madison (1998), American Psycho (2000), and X-Men (2000). Regent Park has also had its share of showcases in film. This article aims to review the general content of movie dramas and televisions shows shot in Regent and explore their relationship to the community. Clement Virgo is a director, producer, and writer from Montego Bay, Jamaica. He was born in 1966 and moved to the Regent Park area in Toronto in 1977. During this time Regent Park was generally populated by low-income families and as a hot spot for drugs. Virgo is most recently known for his roles in Greenleaf (2016-2018), The Book of Negroes (2015), and The Wire (2002) as Director and/or Producer. His first feature-length film, however, was Rude (1995), which was filmed almost entirely in the old Regent Park. “The film told...
Read more

What Social Inclusion Means to Me

By -
I had moved into Regent Park only a few days before I saw the pink, fuchsia, strawberry, indigo, yellow, green, neck streamers and sparkling robes worn by children, parents, aunts, uncles, and elders as they marched passed my kitchen door. Soon, the nearby Athletic Grounds was blazing with colour. Although it was the first time I heard them, the intonations on the microphone were recognizable, even to me, as prayers. It was Eid, the concluding celebration after Ramadan. It was a beautiful sight. I am a White Jewish senior and I hunted for a stairless condo for years before I chose to live in Regent Park and then only because a relative did business with the new seniors’ building there. “Regent Park?” a friend exclaimed. “You are going to have ethnic problems.”  “Not I.  I come from a long line of fiery leftie activists.” I replied. Stage four and five of revitalizing this post-war subsidized development into a multi-income community was just beginning and I ju...
Read more

Meet Your Neighbourhood Police Officers – PC Mircea Biga and PC Farzad Ghotbi

By -
Image
Community-based policing is a proactive law enforcement strategy that focuses on building ties and working closely with a community’s members to create partnerships and plans for preventing and reducing crime. While community policing will look differently depending on the community it serves, a central feature is that the same officer patrols and works in the same area on a permanent basis. Currently there are 17 community-based police programs in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), but what most people don’t know is that Toronto’s community policing started in Regent Park in May of 2017. We know this because the original officers involved in setting up the Regent Park community policing program continue to work here today. The officers are PC Mircea Biga, PC Farzad Ghotbi, and PC Edward Parks; the newest officer assigned to the Regent Park community is PC Nigel Thomas (who is replacing PC Melissa Huntley while she is on maternity leave). Symptomatic of the increasing diversity...
Read more