Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Mr. Chair and members.
I wanted to speak a little bit about the challenges we face in our community, in particular the East and Southeast Asian LGBT communities.
Historically, our organization was born because of a need, because there was none that existed at the time, and through the challenges we have faced over the years we have been able to build up an organization. In the past there were two other sister organizations, in Vancouver and Montreal. These have since ceased to exist. We continue to exist. Officially, we've been around for 15 years, historically for over 27 years.
Some of the groups that we currently service include those from Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Burma, Laos, and of course from East Asia, Japan, China, and Korea. Our groups are multilingual, multicultural, and unique in their needs. The challenges for us have always been and continue to be that we don't offer services in one language or in one format. Having said that, what we have received from the CIC is funding for one program worker, and we've actually been able to function successfully with those.
Our primary challenges are the ongoing issues around community outreach and community integration. Our goals, intentionally, have always been to welcome the newcomers, who don't find services within the mainstream, whether it is mainstream Canadian organizations and agencies or mainstream LGBT communities and agencies. That's our fundamental goal. We serve a niche within this larger Canadian context.
When we actually fill that niche, our goal, ultimately, as with all organizations, is to integrate the individuals, to provide them with enough resources to become productive Canadians. The challenge for us as well, as I said, is multicultural, multilingual, and issues around homophobia, racism...and the list goes on.
One of the things that we've fundamentally tried to address through the CIC funding was to bridge that gap between the resources newcomers need in order to become fully participating Canadians.
I'd like our caseworker to give you a little bit of context about what I'm talking about.