Happy Holidays from Together Project! Please enjoy these video stories about how newcomers and volunteers have been working together to build more welcoming communities. We have achieved a lot in this challenging year, by reaching over 80 newcomer families and 350 volunteers. We would love for you to be a part of our work whether as a volunteer or by making a donation. On behalf of our Together Project team, we wish to thank our newcomers and volunteers for participating in our program. We also wish to thank our partners, funders and individual donors without whom our work would not be possible. Watch here: https://vimeo.com/491875733

As we recently wrapped up our “Welcome Groups for Refugee Claimants” pilot program, funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, we wanted to share with you some of the results we received from the program’s evaluation, which you can find below. This data comes from 19 refugee claimant households who participated in surveys before and after their matches. Read more here.

CBC Metro Morning’s host Ismaila, interviews Sam and Heejae about what it’s been like for them to participate in Together Project’s Welcome Group program. After overcoming numerous challenges, Sam connected with Together Project volunteers who are helping him navigate his career and community. Listen here.

In Episode 1 of CBC Metro Morning’s two-part series, Ismaila interviews Sam about the many challenges he faced arriving in Toronto as a refugee claimant from Uganda. Sam is a newcomer participant in Together Project’s Welcome Groups for Refugee claimants pilot program. Listen here.

The third episode of Together Project’s podcast is now live!

In this episode, we speak with Maria, a refugee from Mexico, and Paula a volunteer who is working with Maria and her family on learning English and more.

Listen on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2ETlFbK

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/33Mdckm

Or Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/30P17cc

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the lockdown occurred in March, Together Project had about 150 volunteers who were already participating in six-month matches with Government-Assisted Refugees, and about to match 150 more. Read about how we adapted our program to provide remote social support in this new blog post with Volunteer Canada: http://ow.ly/eNk250BFqQV