Community Support for Newcomers in the Neepawa & Area

On our second episode of Connecting Newcomers, we were able to put together some of the existing services, events and community initiated support and activities for our newcomers. During some of the events, we were able to interview some of the newcomers. They identified that the major difficulties they faced or are facing were the adjustments with the weather, language and culture. However, the support that they received from the community alleviated some of their major issues and concerns.

Don Walmsley explained the role of the Settlement as the first point of contact for the newcomers in the community and their available services and resources for the newcomers and their families. He also mentioned that a large population of the newcomers in the area are still those coming from the Philippines but there has been quite a number of immigrants as well from other countries like, Ukraine and China.

There are also other organizations and even businesses who sponsored some events and activities to welcome our newcomers. As mentioned by one of the Settlement staff, “We actually went around and we talked to the business owners and we had a very warm response and we are thankful for everyone that has donated to us. It’s just kind of a nice way to welcome our newcomer families."

Aside from these, there were individuals from the community who stepped up and initiated support for our newcomers like the Neepawa Newcomers Coat Room that provides free winter jackets to newcomer families for their first winter experience in Canada. She mentioned that her interaction with the newcomers helped her to understand their needs and from there she started to extend help to the newcomers and later on it grew bigger with the help of the community.

Collaboration between different organizations and actors in the community has helped set up supporting mechanisms for our newcomers in Neepawa and the area.