What inspired you to get involved in Together Project?

Three main reasons.

The first reason is my gratitude for Canada. My parents immigrated to Canada from Greece when I was very young and we have found it to be such a wonderful and kind country full of opportunities. At the age of 15, I decided that I wanted to give back to Canada for the wonderful life it has offered to my family and me, and I’ve been volunteering in different ways since then. Read more.

Ngozi (not her real name) is a refugee claimant single mother with three children who arrived in Canada about one year ago. She is in a Welcome Group match with five women volunteers for six months. Ngozi shares her thoughts on remote social support with Together Project Co-Director, Anna Hill. Read more.

“I help with Arabic translation between volunteers and newcomers. At the beginning I was in almost every WhatsApp chat translating. It gave me a lot of hope that I am doing something useful. I never knew my language could provide so much help in Canada.” – Khadije. Read more here.

Together Project has launched a podcast! We will be interviewing volunteers in our Welcome Group program to share their experiences being matched with refugee newcomers in Toronto and Mississauga. Listen to our first episode now featuring Amy, Eunice, Melissa and Byra. Special thanks to Rahwa for allowing the volunteers to share their stories. Listen on Apple: https://apple.co/2YNjQ7b or Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3fiXjVE

Together Project uses the term “vulnerable newcomers” to refer to the government-assisted refugees and refugee claimants we serve. These newcomers are considered to be more “vulnerable” than other newcomers because they typically encounter more barriers when trying to rebuild their lives in Canada. Welcome Group volunteers can help by providing six months of social support to newcomers to assist with their integration priorities such as language learning, career navigation or access to education. Learn how you can enhance newcomer resilience and mitigate social isolation by offering remote social support at https://togetherproject.ca/matching/#volunteer

We would like to thank TechSoup Canada for publishing our guest blog post about remote social support, and Charity Village for reposting it. This piece explains the changes we have made at Together Project to support newcomer refugees through online volunteering during the pandemic. “We have been learning together with our program participants and while there have been hurdles to overcome, there have also been many new opportunities for growth for our initiative.” Join our Co-Directors for a Tech Soup webinar on July 29th webinar to learn more about the impact of remote social support. Register here.
https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/2523399384103612429