Canada announces new funding to support the advancement of newcomer youths and their families

To help newcomers settle, adapt and integrate into Canadian society, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), in partnership with provinces, territories and settlement providers, has been delivering programs and services to migrants and providing stakeholders necessary funding to support these initiatives.

Just after a $36 million settlement funding for newcomer youths and their families in Toronto and high needs neighborhoods, another funding of more than $300,000 has been announced to help youth settlement services in the Peel region, which will support the advancement of new young Canadians and their full participation in the community.

The funding will be used to support Dixie Bloor Neighborhood Center’s innovative programs for newcomer youths and their families, and YMCA’s Newcomer Youth Leadership Development Program and the YMCA Newcomer Parent Workshop Series. These modern settlement services include language and job skills training, leadership development programs, mentorships, peer engagement and recreational activities that would be delivered through sports and the arts. Workshops for parents will help them understand how important it is for youth to participate in recreational activities and get a sense of youth culture and practices in Canada. These services are expected to be delivered to an estimated 120 newcomer youths in the Peel region.

Similarly, a new settlement funding of more than $2.7 million has been announced for the Canadian Ukrainian Immigrant Aid Society (CUIAS) to assist in delivering settlement services to newcomers in Toronto.

Besides supporting the essential settlement services such as referrals to community resources, advice and guidance, translation and interpretation, and group workshops on the Canadian legal, social, health and economic system, this funding will specifically be used to support (a) specialty language training for seniors and higher level language training, with a focus on writing skills, and (b) a pilot youth program which will include sporting, social, and recreational activities. This will include a new Youth Outreach Worker to provide social services to youth who have been harder to reach, such as Government Assisted Refugees and young people with mental or physical health challenges. This funding is expected to serve an estimated 3,000 people.

These funding for settlement, youth development programs and language training to Ontario are provided under the $920 million Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement (COIA) over five years and are part of $1.4 billion package over five years to provinces and territories other than Quebec, which was committed by the Canadian federal government in budget 2006.