Strengthening Community Leagues:
A Multicultural Approach to Membership Drives
· Low income, low level of integration, high needs of ethnic community
· Conscientious strategies are needed
· Community Leagues are an excellent vehicle to improve lives
Canada welcomes newcomers. Once, newcomers arrive to this peace loving country and to their new home, the process of integration begins. Integration is a process of mutual adjustment by both newcomers and society. Newcomers are expected to understand and respect basic Canadians values and Canadians are expected to understand and respect the cultural differences newcomers bring to Canada. Rather than expecting the newcomers to abandon their own cultural heritage, the emphasis on to find ways to integrate differences in a pluralistic society. (Immigrant integration in Canada 2006).
Edmonton has become a global village. With immigrants from all over the world and from within Canada making Edmonton their home, a lot of multicultural integration work is needed. The question before us is how to effectively integrate newcomers into the society?
The Federal Government provides settlement services mainly for refugee class immigrants. These services are available for a maximum of one year and then they are on their own. Cultural shock, parental issues, language barriers, lack of financial support forces some family to remain in isolation and suffer further.
The Province offers education and skills upgrades which help in finding a job, but seldom help in integration. There are skilled immigrants who enter the labour force, pay taxes but remain disconnected from the mainstream community life. Immigrants have revealed that they have difficulties in establishing social network and relationships. What one can see often is that newcomers don’t establish contact within the wider community and frequently immigrant agencies or friends in their own community are the source of assistance.
We need to think and develop a City wide strategy for integration of different social and ethnic groups, youth and women – a strategy which implies conscious planning, consistency, systematic and goal minded action at a City level and Community League level. Luckily, in Edmonton we don’t have to create new resources or institutions for integration rather we need to strengthen the existing Community Leagues system.
Community leagues provide a unique forum to the community members to get to know one another and the community, learn and share experiences, raise civic, safety issues and take active part in sports and recreation activities. Generally, low income refugee families can’t afford these programs and their children forego the opportunities most resident children have.
Resources like City and Provincial sports associations, Kids Sports, etc need to come forward and payback to the community by exempting low income and refugee families from registration fees as a policy.
At the community league level there is a need to provide multicultural education to community league volunteers on an ongoing basis. Community League volunteers are expected to be sensitive to the presence of unique cultures in their communities and developed programs based on diversity. I will suggest three main areas community leagues volunteers may concentrate on:
· To welcome newcomers in culturally appropriate ways
· To ensure equality
· To create opportunities for newcomers at the community league level.
At the Community League level opportunities exists for social interaction, integration and community building. Community Leagues are capable of developing a sense of community identity among all community members, bringing people together and encourage understanding between ethnic communities and groups. Besides their contribution to the economy, newcomers add diversity to our city and communities and give us a better understanding of different cultures by living side by side with host society. Newcomers will undoubtedly continue to play a significant role in the development of Edmonton, Alberta, and Canada.