Thank you for the opportunity.
Pre-arrival information services are huge. I deal with clients on a daily basis. There are currently over 600 clients on my load. Many of them are in the professional class or the semi-professional class. Most consistently we get folks not being aware of the credential recognition and licensure process, or some details about the community that are relevant to them, not just the job, but the social and cultural infrastructure that makes the second home a new home. Where is the mosque? Where are the community groups? Where can they buy certain foods? Who else is there? That often happens after a person arrives, but by pre-arrival information services connecting people with those institutions, connecting people with those networks—like my colleague was mentioning—host communities, relationships can develop. Of course, they're always better when they're face to face, but that is so easy to do now through digital technologies. Making that information available makes a big difference.
The second point is to have those kinds of infrastructure in the community, the social, cultural, political infrastructure that helps people feel welcome. I'm talking about everything from the food, fashion, fun festivities that allow people to dance in ethnocultural racial garb and sample different foods, but something also a bit more sophisticated than that, that shows genuine appreciation for different people's cultures and experiences.
I'll give you a quick example. On June 20, World Refugee Day, we held an event in our local community. We had the local refugee community tell their stories of where they had left behind. It was decorated with pictures of their story. They told their personal story. We had music from those particular places. The room was packed. What it demonstrated to folks is people were concerned. They were aware of the global context. There was a sense of welcomeness. Simple events like that go a long way.