brief survey online<\/a> about their work experiences and services available through their organization that promote social inclusion for immigrant women and communities. At the end of the survey, participants have the option to consent to a more comprehensive follow-up interview.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re asking them to give their perspective on what they feel is happening with immigrant women communities in terms of feeling included or excluded and how their programs tailor to or have components that tailor to inclusion,\u201d Crawford says.<\/p>\n
This is the second phase of the three-phase project, which began with a critical review last year. After collecting the data from community participants, a report will be compiled and disseminated locally during the third phase in hopes of seeing programming developed based on its findings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to bring the information back to the community first \u2014 say, \u2018Here\u2019s what we found, we think it might be effective. What do you think and how can we work to develop this together?\u2019\u201d Crawford says. \u201cIt\u2019s important to have community buy in. We have to go straight to the people and organizations who will be participating in and running these programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to develop and support programming that actually works in the real world,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Crawford is hopeful that when the report is completed, the evidence will assist local organizations, such as TOES Niagara, in their efforts to obtain funding for additional programming.<\/p>\n
\u201cImproving the inclusion of immigrant women will see society reap the benefits of economic contributions and civic engagement,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is a win-win situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Community collaboration, including working with TOES Niagara and Executive Director Nyarayi Kapisavanhu, is critical to the project\u2019s success, Crawford says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was Nyarayi who recognized there are issues in the community with immigrant women in Niagara who feel isolated and don\u2019t feel included,\u201d she says. \u201cNyarayi is on the front lines, so she has a good idea of what\u2019s going to work and what isn\u2019t, and how we can best reach out to women for their input.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kapisavanhu says the project is important because it will \u201chelp\u00a0to ensure more equitable access to and control of resources and benefits, and enhance participation in decision-making at group and community levels for immigrant women in Niagara.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo this end,\u00a0I encourage women and girls with lived experience to participate and engage in the process in order to influence pandemic recovery responses as well as program types, outcomes and activities that would best suit and serve them to remove barriers and obstacles that have led to social exclusion,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is an example of ‘not for us without us’ at work.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Both the SJRI and Crawford have been working for several years with TOES Niagara, which offers workshops, programs and other support services to remove barriers for immigrant and racially marginalized women and their families and help enable improved economic and educational outcomes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot of collaboration going on, it\u2019s been really rich, and it shows how working together really improves your ability to work on something that is going to make a change in the community,\u201d Crawford says. \u201cWe each bring something different to the table and acknowledge and respect each other\u2019s skills.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information or to participate in the study, contact Crawford at joanne.crawford@brocku.ca<\/a> or call 905-688-5550 x4363.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moving to a new country can be a daunting experience and, even years after settling in, feelings of isolation and exclusion may remain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":72695,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,9794,7,3319,1,4,5],"tags":[5505,10326,34,10438,10325],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72693"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72696,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72693\/revisions\/72696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}