Celebrating a Multicultural Workplace

During WOW week, a series of events organized by the Ottawa Local Immigration Partnership (olip), World Skills Employment Centre celebrated Multiculturalism Day in style!

On June 27, 2018 we hosted an open house as part of the celebrations throughout the city. We invited our partners and neighbours in the community to visit our office to enjoy a display of colour, flavours, and culture.

Visitors had the opportunity to sample delicious treats kindly offered by our staff and learned relevant and curious facts about each of the countries represented at World Skills.

We’re proud that our staff come from 22 different countries and we collectively speak over 20 languages. This is a representation of what Canada is.

Other facts that we shared with our guests:

Did you know that we serve only newcomers to Canada?

Did you know that we were founded in 1997 with only two employees and today we’re more than 35 staff?

Did you know that last year alone we helped over 500 newcomers find jobs in their field or related?

Did you know that we received a recognition for Leadership in Volunteer Diversity in 2017?

Visitors were impressed by the stories shared by our staff who enthusiastically talked about their countries of origin, their traditions, costumes, hobbies and geographies. It was a day filled with excitement, pride and gratefulness toward Canada and its welcoming spirit.

What started as an idea to display national flags and to sample treats, ended up being an incredible opportunity to share, learn and be motivated while we all told our stories and reminisced about our heritage and its influence on who we are and how we live.

While doing that, our main goal was to pay homage to Ottawa’s diverse and inclusive communities by celebrating our cultural backgrounds and the richness that immigrants bring to Canada as a whole… and we certainly achieved it!

Thanks to our staff, funders, partners, donors, sponsors, volunteers and the community in general, we’ve been enhancing newcomers’ economic integration into the Canadian economy for over 20 years.

We’re proud to offer our clients:

  • Job Search Support
  • Access to Employment Opportunities
  • Workplace Language Training Programs
  • Settlement Online Pre-arrival Services

Our tagline is “Connecting Immigrants to Employment” and we do that with passion, professionalism and lots of enthusiasm!

On Multiculturalism Day, new Canadians and old Canadians alike pay homage to our nation while embracing the new cultures and colours that conform who we are.

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