Yes, and I want to speak about the gateway model, which is really best described through the story of Olu.
Olu is a young, very determined single mother who fled Nigeria due to domestic violence and arrived as a refugee. She was struggling alone with two small children, one of whom was severely disabled. She came to New Circles for clothing. She heard about New Circles when she was shopping at Value Village and met up with a friend of hers, who told her where she could get free clothing.
She came to us for clothing, and then she began volunteering when she met people there who welcomed her. Subsequently, she heard about and then enrolled in our retail training program. After she graduated, she was able to leverage that to get employment at Lowe's home improvement store, where she still works today. It's not far from where I live and I often run into her when she is on her shifts, which is always nice.
In coming for clothing, GLOW served as a gateway enabling Olu to break down her isolation, build a social network, gain Canadian experience and credentials through her volunteer placement, get references, register with an employment office and then break into the labour force.
One of the strengths of this gateway model is that clients maintain consistent relationships within our agency. They see the same staff and volunteers in GLOW, which is largely staffed by volunteers who may either be clients or established Canadians, so there is a lot of integration there. They see these same people, whether they're shopping for clothing, volunteering or doing their placement as part of the retail skills training program. This helps build trust, and when we are referring and suggesting other programs, either within New Circles or out in the community, there is more openness to hearing and to seeing how this may be relevant to them. Clients and our graduates often tell us that they feel like they have found a second family at New Circles.
Another key strength of our model is accessibility. Everyone is welcome to walk through and enter the GLOW gateway. While many of our users are new to Canada, their status ranges from temporary worker to refugee claimant, permanent resident and citizen.
It also means that among our clients and volunteers we have a diverse community of cultural and social backgrounds. I like to think of it as a mini UN. We serve 160 different countries through our client base. This helps break down silos and build community connections.
We are going to speak today about one of our greatest challenges, though, which is financial sustainability. We are a young organization that was founded by someone, and we are largely funded through the philanthropic community. Currently, we have to raise 85% of our annual budget from private sector donations and grants. This happens year after year, so we are hopeful that we can form a partnership with the federal government and join the network of IRCC-funded service providers to continue the work on a more sustainable footing.
We are currently participating in the recent call for proposals, and we're especially encouraged by the pilot initiative to support the success of visible minority newcomer women in joining the labour force, which is an area that we are focused on, and in particular the invitation to new agencies to apply. We certainly felt very welcome to participate in that process. However, we noted that the 12-month funding period for this pilot initiative limits what it is possible to achieve in such a short time, so that was a limitation in terms of what we could propose.
We also feel it could be helpful if the funding allowed service providers to work with people before and after receiving their permanent resident status. In our experience in particular, we see a need among immigrant women who have spent their initial years in Canada, after arrival, focused on their family responsibilities rather than looking for work. They come to us now ready to join the labour force and face the same barriers as someone who may have just arrived—language capacity and lack of Canadian experience, current skills and social networks—but as Canadian citizens they are not eligible for this type of funding even though with support from us they have exactly the same potential to make the positive contribution that women newcomers have.
We wanted to raise a couple of those points.
Thank you again for the opportunity to tell you about New Circles. We'd be happy to answer any questions. We hope that our model might be one that could be replicated in other urban centres in Canada to contribute to the successful settlement of immigrants.
Thank you.