Staff photo by Laura Kish
Elena Mihulescu-Cozma moved to Kipling from Romania in December 2007 along with her husband and daughter. She owns a business called Elena’s Fashion & Design which is not officially open yet but plans to be very soon.

By Lizz Bottrell, Citizen Staff

Over the past couple months, the Community Settlement Committee (CSC) for the Kipling area made some exciting advancements in ways to welcome new immigrants to the community. One of the most exciting ideas is a campaign to put faces on the immigrants by telling their stories of where they came from, why they came to this area and what they do now.

The Southeast Community Settlement Committee (SCSC), which includes representatives from all the CSC’s from the Southeast corner of the province, came up with the campaign as a way to help local community members become more welcoming to the new neighbors. “Newcomers made a lot of sacrifices to come here,” said Tamara Bloor, the SCSC member organizing the campaign. “They had family and friends and houses and they left because they really believed Canada had great opportunities.”

Bloor commented that some local people may still be unwelcoming to the newcomers and therefore she hopes the campaign will smooth over any preconceived issues. “The people that are coming to the Southeast are skilled workers,” said Bloor. “They’re not people just coming to take our jobs away.”

Anyone who has paid attention to the news over the past year, can clearly see the province is in the middle of an economic boom. Of course, with an economic boom of this size, more and more workers are needed on a daily basis. Many companies cannot find enough skilled employees, so foreign workers can help fill some of the empty spots.

The SCSC hopes to kick off the campaign to put faces on immigrants in the middle of June with a story highlighting an immigrant from one of the five focus areas. This story will appear in five papers from the focus areas, which include, Estevan, Weyburn, Kipling, Oxbow, and Carlyle. Each month thereafter, for five months in total, the campaign will focus on an immigrant living in each of the five areas. The articles will tell the immigrants’ personal story as to why they came to Canada, what sort of obstacles they had to overcome as well as their hopes and dreams.

In other CSC news, the committee has been looking into workplace awareness workshops to conduct with local businesses. The sensitivity training is meant for a business or company to complete prior to an immigrant coming to work for them. Any employer or employee working with an immigrant should receive this sort of training.

The committee also plans to hold mentor training sessions for host families in order for the families to help the immigrant adjust more easily to his or her new home.

Anyone who wishes to volunteer helping out new immigrants to the community, please visit www.sesettlement.ca to sign up. From there, someone will contact an interested volunteer with more information.