Past Projects

Since its beginning in 1975, PIRS has led projects that responded to the emerging needs of immigrants and refugee women and their young children.
Our past projects include:
- Youth Advisory Committee
- Food Security Research Project
- Substitute Child Care Staffing Solutions Research Study
- Path to Success: Supporting Immigrant and Refugee Youth Access Higher Education
- Anti-racism data legislation consultations
- Learning Journeys: Pathways for and with Immigrant and Refugee Women
Youth Advisory Committee
PIRS Youth Advisory Committee is a leadership committee of young newcomer women aiming to understand and reduce barriers to higher education for newcomer youth. This project is funded by the Community-University Engagement Support (CUES) Fund through the UBC Community Engagement office.


Food Security Research Project
The Food Security Research Project is a partnership with the Institute for Sustainable Food Systems (ISFS) at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) to research local food access among newcomers to Canada in the Metro Vancouver area in 2021. As a result of this project, we developed the Food Skills For Families program.
In 2022 we launched the Immigrant Women Food Policy Group to engage in further discussion and knowledge mobilization for policy change around this important issue.
Substitute Child Care Staffing Solutions Research Study
The Substitute Child Care Staffing Solutions Research Study is a comprehensive study of the need for and potential impact of a centralized substitute child care staffing service funded by the City of Vancouver in 2021.This research continues to be timely due to expansion of childcare services to accommodate the $10aDay Child CareBC program. The province is now facing critical workforce shortages.
PIRS collaborated with Dianne Wilmann and Associates on a qualitative, action research study. The goal was to understand:
- how tensions within the broader childcare system play out in the realm of substitute childcare
- the implications for immigrant and refugee women, who make up one third of the overall childcare workforce.

Path to Success: Supporting Immigrant and Refugee Youth Access Higher Education
The Path to Success: Supporting Immigrant and Refugee Youth Access Higher Education project was a collaborative initiative between PIRS and UBC students Shogofa Alizada and Emilie Wang. This project, funded by the UBC Community-University Engagement Support (CUES) Fund, tackled the complex barriers faced by newcomer youth in their educational journeys.


Anti-Racism Data Legislation Consultations
In October 2021, BC government reached out to the Indigenous and racialized community organizations asking for input on the Anti-Racism Data Act, a legislation that would help identify and address systemic racism and other inequities in provincial government programs and services.
PIRS became one of almost 70 organizations to facilitate community sessions where participants could share how they prefer to identify or represent themselves, their experiences of providing personal information to government agencies, and how they would like their data to be used so that the government can work towards advancing racial equity. We facilitated six community sessions with program participants, volunteers, our Childcare and Outreach teams to gather input to share with legislators.
Learning Journeys: Pathways for and with Immigrant and Refugee Women
Learning Journeys was a 2-year participatory research project funded by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to increase knowledge and deepen understanding of immigrant women’s experiences and perspectives to inform settlement programming in Canada. It was completed in March 2021.
Immigrant Women Advisory Committee (IWAC) was born out of Learning Journeys informed.

More info |
Learn more about our past projects and impact in our Annual Reports. Check out our Current Research, Social Innovation and System Change projects |
We aim to raise $50,000 for the Afghan Women Fund to help at least 50 families in 2023.

