Roadmap to Employment. Celebrating Success.

Last night we held the first event to celebrate the successes of the Roadmap to Employment Program (RTE) at World Skills.

We’d like to thank everyone who has touched this program; because of your intervention, guidance, expertise and commitment to helping newcomers find employment, we have changed lives, sped up the integration time and helped to heal spirits. To our staff and partners Maria, Emad, Alaa, Kate, Ledianis, Aparna, Fouzia, Vikki, Soumya, Sid, Daline, Shahrzad, Mengis, Magdalene and everyone who has referred and supported this program along the way – Thank you!

We invited clients who have found employment and their families to come together for an intimate celebration to share their stories and successes and finished the evening with a meal prepared by one of the clients who has begun his own catering company.

Representatives from our funders United Way and Ottawa Community Foundation were able to join us as well as staff, and community partners. Our own staff MC’ed and interpreted in both English and Arabic. The stories told were so genuine and heart felt that it was as if you were traveling the path right alongside the person as they told it. We heard of the power of networking and friendship, depression and jubilation, acceptance and integration and the common theme was how World Skills and the RTE team helped along their journey and how we were a part of their success.

The success stories were attributed to the targeted recruitment events; the job fairs that they attended as suggested by Maria and Emad; workshops and employment counselling.  Despite language and networking barriers, many of the attendees found similar work to what they were doing before immigrating to Canada.

Our team at World Skills did not stop at just sending out the job fair and job posting information but they were there each step of the way with their clients.  The team also attended the job fairs to offer support and guidance as well as encouragement to the clients and when they were invited to interviews, our staff served as interpreters and helped with the on-boarding when needed, working side by side with the employers.

Just to highlight some of the RTE successes:

• We have met with and assessed 306 clients from July 2016-June 2017 of which 252 were actively engaged through employment counselling, workshops, targeted recruitment events, networking opportunities, and job application assistance
• We delivered 12 workshops with 127 clients who learned about the Canadian Labour Market, conducted on-line job searches and created resumes
• We sent information for 8 local job fairs and attended 4 to support our clients during the event
• We hosted specialized Targeted Recruitment Events for 4 employers where 81 clients participated
• We also partnered with EDC to hold an Interview Roulette where 17 clients practiced their interview skills and left better prepared for the job market
• A total of 95 clients found employment!

Great job RTE team!

Congratulations to the clients for their success; thank you for choosing us to help you in your journey as you settle and grow in Canada!