Past Projects

Group of women lined up behind each other, smiling

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

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.

Download the Youth Advisory Committee flyer

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.

Read the full project report

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.

Download the PIRS Childcare Staffing Solutions Pilot Report

PIRS-Childcare-Staffing-Solutions-Report-cover

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.

More about our Path to Success Project

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.

In June 2022, the Anti-Racism Data Act became law. We are grateful for the opportunity to contribute and proud to have the voices of immigrant and refugee women inform decision-making in BC!

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 about our Learning Journeys Project