Building Rural Capacity to Support Newcomers

This project, done in partnership with an immigrant-serving agency, provided a four-part virtual training to participants to help them better attract, settle, and retain newcomers into rural communities for the long term. Upon completion of the project, a toolkit was developed to provide resources and information to rural communities across Alberta to increase their capacity to support newcomers through a rural lens.. 

This project also worked in partnership with the Alberta Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies (AAISA) to provide an online self-paced course for service providers to gain resources, tools and information to better support immigrant clients moving, settling, and staying in rural communities across Alberta.

• Funder: Government of Alberta’s Settlement, Language and Integration Projects (SILP) 
• Funder: Alberta Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies (AAISA) 
• Partner: ASSIST Community Services Centre  

This project successfully supported participants in: 

• Recognizing the diverse barriers newcomers experience when settling in rural communities 
• Defining key terms such as equity, diversity, inclusion, and intersectionality  
• Understanding anti-discrimination and best practices to support a more inclusive community 
• Explaining common frameworks and approaches for supporting newcomers, immigrants, and refugees such as anti-discrimination, anti-oppression, cultural competence, and cultural humility 
• Identifying trauma-informed practices 
• Examining the characteristics and approaches of welcoming and inclusive communities through a rural lens