Engaging Youth and Minorities – a Change Agent and Value Creation -NGO, 2:30 pm
| Stream 3 - Social, Session Overview |
| Inclusion, equality and citizenship are necessary ingredients for building a thriving community. Yet we find barriers to entry, prejudice and ignorance in our society. Sometimes, this is because of resistance to change. Often it is the lack of knowledge and understanding which creates barriers to growth. This is the case with our youth and minorities. "Engaging Youth and Minorities" discusses the values, challenges and opportunities that youth and immigrants bring to industry and Canada as a nation. Members of this panel represent both corporate and non-profit social service agencies who work with these demographics to understand, educate and integrate both sides of the society. Join us in a discussion about how engaging youth and minorities opens up opportunities for strong corporate citizenship, better learning environment at schools, economic, environmental, social innovation and visionary leadership. |
| Introduction by session chair: Urooj Qureshi |
| Coffee Eh - Canadian cultural challenges in the workplace: Naomi Fowlie, Integration Resources Canada Baby boomers are retiring in record numbers and the Canadian birth rate is falling. By 2011 immigration will account for 100% of net labour growth. This is already apparent in an increasingly diverse workforce. Fortunately, Ottawa is noted for attracting a higher percentage of Internationally Educated Professionals with specialized post secondary, Masters or PhD degrees than other areas in Canada. Many land employment commensurate with their level of education and experience, yet still experience challenges once in the workplace. |
Immigrant Youth Engagement: Wali Farah, Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization Immigrant and refugee youth need to learn all the skills that any young person needs to learn as they grow into adulthood including learning to manage all the conflicting emotions, peer pressures and internal changes that are part of all young people’s experience. However, unlike their peers who were born in Canada, they also have another set of potential challenges: navigating a new culture; navigating cultural conflict within the family; dealing with any pressures the family is experiencing and the changes that often happen within the family as a result, and coping with a cultural community that is itself often in flux within the larger, dominant culture. Then there are conflicting expectations from both home and school, unresponsive public and private spheres e.g. education, employment etc. To respond to needs of the immigrant youth OCISO has launched a comprehensive Immigrant Youth Project known as YOCISO. YOCISO has several components, life skills curriculum, case management, leadership skills development and an open dialogue with parents raising youth in a bicultural ro multicultural contexts. |
Jephtée Elysée, Enterprise Center, YMCA This presentation will highlight major barriers youth in our communities are facing today and will analyze and question as a community how we can help them overcome those barriers. This presentation will offer an inside look at a program, offered by the Y Enterprise Centre in partnership with the federal government and CIBC, which tackles some of those barriers and offer youth a real solution to overcome them. |
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