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 Purpose: To offer a gathering place where people from the Middle East, Africa and other cultures can connect with each other and learn how to access community resources. 1) The organization will open and maintain a facility at 13483 108th Ave in Surrey, BC that will be open from 10:00am to 6:00pm Monday through Saturday with some extended hours for English conversational classes. This center opened on July 29, 2009 at this rented facility. 2) The totally volunteer staff at this facility has lived in a number of locations around the world and those already enlisted as volunteers have a variety of language skills including Arabic, Farsi, Swahili, English, Turkish, Mandarin, Cantonese and French. 3) This facility and these volunteers are available to assist newcomers to Canada and others as needed. Some assistance has already been given and some other services are being planned. a) Providing free furniture as needed to new corners to the community. We have already helped a number of individuals and families with tables, chairs, televisions, couches, and other needs. b) Helping newcomers understand a variety of paper work that they must complete in English. We have helped several with filling out forms for school, work and applications for community centres and other resources. c) Plans and training are being made to assist newcomers with filling out the Canadian tax forms. We are securing 3-5 used computers to assist them with online services. d) An important services is to provide friendship over a cup of coffee or tea with a caring volunteer that has some understanding of their culture and what it means to be in a new and different country. 4) The organization will work in communication with other organizations in the greater Vancouver area that are focused on refugee and immigrant services. We are currently in communication with ISS in Vancouver as well as some organizations focused on assisting claimant refugees. One example would be on October 22, 2009 ISS of Vancouver is providing as 2 hour seminar on their host program for us at our facility. Purpose: To provide local civic and religious communities with resources and training in cross cultural exchange and awareness. 1) We will plan and conduct monthly cultural awareness seminars on African and Middle Eastern cultures that will be led by our volunteer staff who were born or who have lived long term in Africa and/or the Middle East. 2) We will collect and make available to schools, churches, mosques, or any civic or religious community materials and resources about the different cultures that we see every day in the Surrey community. Purpose: To maintain a resource center and library with books, cds, dvds, and other materials in Arabic, Farsi, English and other languages as needed and available. 1) The organization will provide a quiet library setting and a supply of both library resources to check out and return later and some materials to take for free or by donation to keep. a) We already have around 600 books in Arabic, 100 books in English, 50 books in Farsi and a few copies of books in other languages. 2) We will have several study areas set up with tables and chairs where visitors to the center can read or study as needed. 3) We will have 3-5 computers reserved for visitor to use as needed for research, writing job resumes, etc and our volunteers will be available to give them assistance as needed with their language skills. Purpose: To provide a setting for conversational English and other language learning opportunities. 1) The organization will hold conversational English classes on a regular schedule. We will not provide any certificate ESL but rather give individuals an opportunity to practice their English conversationally and often in a one on one setting. We currently have two classes meeting twice a week. One meets from 5:30-7:30pm on Thursday evenings and the other one on Saturday from 10:00am until noon. We have a class for beginners and a class for more advanced. We are also giving some assistance in reading and writing skills. 2) We have plans to begin Arabic classes. A number of people have requested this service. 3) We will provide other classes in a variety of languages as requested and as we have volunteers who are skilled and available. |
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