I'm Lily Kwok, the Executive Director of the Calgary Chinese Community Service Association. I'll give a very brief introduction of CCCSA.
We are a non-profit organization that is now 40 years old. Our mission is to connect the Chinese community and other ethnic communities to the mainstream, and we are committed to providing an inclusive society in which people's life-chances are maximized.
CCCSA's main target is immigrants, and we try to equip them with knowledge and skills. One important way we do that is to provide them with services to reduce social isolation so that they increase their confidence and independence and are better able to function in Canadian society.
We have four pillars of programs. One is integration and civic engagement, which we call ICE. Under this pillar, we have a lot of supports such as interpretation, one-on-one support, English programs and social inclusion exercises.
The next pillar supports children and youth. Again, this is for immigrant children and youth. We reach out to schools to organize after-school programs, social-norm activities, as well as career investigation.
There are two other pillars—law and advocacy, and family and wellness.
Under the ICE program, we have two English programs. One is called Stepping Stones, and the other is called computer-enhanced ESL literacy. We started Stepping Stones in 2002, and now it is 15 years old. After we started that in the Chinese community, we tried to bring it to the Sudanese and Punjabi communities, but due to a lack of infrastructure, it could not continue.
In 2006, we moved the program to the Afghan community, and we have now had that program in the Afghan community for nine years. This program is very well known in both the Chinese and Afghan communities, and it's getting more popular.
The other one, computer-enhanced ESL literacy, was once a Bow Valley College program, and it was transferred to us in 2015. Both programs are funded by Calgary Learns. We do not receive any IRCC funding. There are other communities that are requesting this program.
I'll give it to Nazifia to explain more about these programs.