In response to ongoing global humanitarian crises, PIRS established the Crisis Fund in March to support those displaced from Ukraine, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
During times of upheaval, the services we provide are even more urgent for newcomer women. Services like Community English Classes, Food Access, parenting programs, and Women’s Leadership and Development are key to accessing crucial information and building new support systems, as they build their new lives in Canada.
This May, we expanded our team with a new Ukrainian-speaking Outreach Support Worker, allowing us to provide trauma-informed and culturally relevant services to 10 new Ukrainian women and their families, with more seeking support each week.
Our Dari and Pashto-speaking Outreach Support Worker, hired in February, continues to support incoming Afghan women.
We added an extra English language class, in partnership with the Muslim Food Bank. Strategically located in Surrey, we are able to reach Afghan women who recently arrived. We are beginning to introduce Ukrainian participants to this class.
Leanna (PIRS Community English Class teacher) expresses the heartwarming feeling of seeing her students welcome fellow newcomers into class, as they arrive and settle into the community: “The welcomes were given and received by gentle smiles and nods. A simple act of kindness displaying understanding, and support from one group of women to another with one word, ‘Welcome!’ A little bit of kindness does go a long way!”
She notes that the acts of kindness go beyond any cultural differences or language barriers they may be facing: “All students were gracious, but especially the students from Afghanistan who took it upon themselves, without me prompting them to each say, ‘Welcome and nice to meet you.’”
Along with the English language classes services, PIRS has also created childcare for newcomer mothers, who face additional barriers, including long waitlists for childminding spots in government funded programs. PIRS’ Pop Up Childcare looks after their children using trauma-informed and play-based activities, so that mothers can pursue the opportunities and resources their families need. In one of our recent sessions, the children learned English through storytime, tried playing the ukulele, and created crafts, as seen below.
Additionally, PIRS teamed up with local organisations to welcome and support the Ukrainian community. As a community, we are able to offer Ukrainian-speaking and culturally relevant outreach services, provide information to families with relatives in Ukraine, develop a database of offers of support from across the province, and manage the Help Us Help Ukraine donation program. To read more about our joint efforts, click here.
As Ukrainian women who are single mothers continue to arrive in BC, the generous support of donors allows us to continue to meet emerging and urgent needs.