Partnership Key to Assisting Local Immigrants

For the past five years, the Waterloo Region Immigrant Employment Network (WRIEN) has benefited both immigrants to our area and local employers alike. Our region now stands posed to offer immigrants and employers an even stronger resource for meeting their respective goals thanks to the recent integration of WRIEN into the Immigration Partnership Council of Waterloo Region, which helps immigrants transition into all aspects of life here in Waterloo Region, not only employment.

Here’s an interesting statistic from the Immigration Partnership Council web site,  http://www.immigrationpartnership.ca/: currently 22.3% of Waterloo Region residents are immigrants from diverse regions of the world, with an expected growth to 30% by 2031. That’s a solid argument for increasing awareness and growing the capacity of our region to integrate a higher number of immigrants. Both of which are goals of the Immigration Partnership Council, by the way. Additional goals include:
• improving access to and coordination of initiatives that facilitate immigrant settlement and integration, and
• partnering with and responding to the needs of local employers to improve access to the labour market for immigrants.

I’m pleased to be a member of the Council and I’m proud of the work we’re doing to assist those who choose to settle in our area with feeling a sense of belonging and being able to contribute to our - make that their - community.

Jan