Good afternoon.
As you said, my name is Jess Hamm. I'd like to thank you for the invitation to speak with you today. I believe you are experiencing what I would call nice balmy weather there in Ottawa, as we are experiencing -37°C with the wind chill today.
I am the executive director of the Saskatchewan Intercultural Association, which is an impact non-profit organization founded in 1964. I'd also like to acknowledge that our organization operates on Treaty No. 6 territory, the traditional homelands of first nations and Métis people.
Since our beginning, the SIA has been committed to supporting cultural groups to retain distinctive cultural identity, language and arts while also integrating and feeling accepted into the community they've come to. In the last 20 years SIA has focused on providing programs and services that both empower and relieve barriers for newcomers. When I say “newcomers”, I mean both immigrants and refugees.
We also serve indigenous people in the areas of securing employment, language advancement and cultural understanding. An integral part of SIA has always been to provide anti-racist education and promote intercultural understanding to the general public through workshops, programming and community events.
SIA partners with many organizations in the community to offer a wide variety of programming, including employment skills training, English and heritage language classes, youth programming and performing arts entertainment. SIA works towards intercultural understanding and acceptance in our community through providing intercultural education and through committee work.
For over 20 years, SIA has offered employment training services. One of our employment programs targets internationally trained professionals with the intention of connecting these newcomers to their career fields here in Canada. This program utilizes classroom training and internship-style work placements and is funded provincially by the Government of Saskatchewan.
Another unique employment initiative that we provide serves both newcomers and indigenous youth between the ages of 18 and 30 who have little or no work experience. This program not only addresses employment barriers but is designed to break down any cultural misunderstandings and increase participants' intercultural understanding. This program provides classroom training, with allowances, and paid work placements, day care subsidies and transportation supports. It is also funded through the federal government.
SIA also offers English-language training through both federal and provincial government funding. This allows us to serve newcomers of various statuses and provide classroom training on Canadian language benchmark levels from one to eight. We offer over 24 different classes at different locations throughout the city of Saskatoon. We offer child care for all of our daytime classes and a few of our evening classes.
We also offer several youth programs in the community, with after-school and summer programming. Our summer youth program is for newcomer boys and girls aged six to 18. This program focuses on integration, education and recreation. The program provides transportation supports and is federally funded. Our after-school programs are funded through small local grants and are not restricted to just newcomers. They focus on cultural learning and sharing through partnerships with our local schools.
SIA's core has always been culture and anti-racism, so we also provide programming that values cultural difference and brings people together to learn and understand each other's values through mentoring relationships, educational sessions or forums and bridging opportunities. We also support a network of 22 language schools that provide language training in 19 different languages in our community, as we wholeheartedly believe that staying connected to language and culture is extremely important.
SIA's overall goal is for our community to be an equitable place for all cultures, which means that we are also embracing our role in reconciliation efforts through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action. Through indigenizing our own organization, we aim to provide settlement and integration services to newcomers that are respectful of the indigenous peoples of this land, while also working to support the indigenous communities with their own growth and success. Our city, our province and ultimately our country will thrive and be more successful when our relationships are based on mutual respect, trust and understanding.
I'd like to now read for you just a few impact statement quotes that have been taken directly from our clients.
The first is from one of our employment programs: “I am very grateful to the help as it has assisted me to stand out as a confident and composed person who now fully understands many new cultural and social values. I am now able to exercise newly learned interpersonal skills and am pushing my way forward. During this program, I learned about many new ideas and ways to prepare for resumés, cover letters and interviews, and this has provided me also with the ability to closely interact with fellow colleagues coming from different cultural and social environments.”
This one is from one of our intercultural mentoring programs: “I found this program made me feel welcome to the city, and I was matched with a good mentor who really cares about the program. They showed a real interest to learn and share the point of view about cultures, roots and social issues. By understanding each other's cultures, we have learned that we have similarities in our roots. This program has made me feel really welcome to this city and also to this country.”
This is one more from an employment program: “I wouldn't be where I am today without this program. I am now seeing my daughter every second weekend, and I just bought a car. I also bought good runners that can breathe, because I need them for work. If this program hadn't helped by providing the cab so I could get to the interview or connect to my work placement and now my job, I don't know where I would be.”
Last, this one is from one of our English-language programs: “I heard SIA offered English classes with child care. Luckily, I got a chance to become a CLB 3-4 student. Since I joined this class, I feel happy because I do not need to worry about my child during learning English. I came to Canada five years ago, and my first job was at a hotel. One time my manager asked me to do something, but I could not understand, and I felt embarrassed. Now, when working, I am able to answer the phone for my manager, and I can make simple conversation with customers. My English skills have improved a lot, but I still need to work hard. I will keep learning English and never give up.”