READI to Work 

READI to Work is a training program that supports business sustainability and addresses labour shortages by teaching successful practices for the recruitment, hiring, and retention of newcomer employees. Training is done through a hybrid model with employers across rural communities in Alberta and Saskatchewan. 

In addition, this project seeks to provide newcomers to Canada and international students with the opportunity to find meaningful work placements with READI-certified employers. 

READI to Work supports employers in rural communities, newcomers, and international students. 

This project will provide over 50 meaningful work placements for newcomers and international students while supporting over 30 rural employers with tools, resources, and information to effectively meet the needs of newcomer employees and retain staff for the long term. 

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This project is designed to support rural communities, service providers, community-based organizations, immigrant-serving agencies, employment centres and municipalities in understanding the unique needs and barriers faced by Ukrainian evacuees settling in rural Albertan communities.   

The training will include: 

• Background information on the situation in Ukraine, and characteristics, specific needs, and common pathways and experiences of Ukrainian evacuees;  
• Approaches to appropriate service provision such as cultural competency and trauma-informed care; and 
• Workshops specific to non-traditional settlement groups, such as: employment (private businesses, employment assistance and adult learning agencies), education (SWIS workers, schools), and housing (landlords, property management companies, and host families). 

The project will provide a five-part virtual training series to participants from October to December 2024.  

Click on the button to learn and Register for a FREE Train-the-Trainer Workshop Series. The deadline to register is Oct 8th at 5 PM.

This project is in progress. 

READI is a capacity-building training program created to support employers in rural communities with the successful attraction, settlement, and retention of immigrant employees. This training was done both virtually and in-person and was created to fill the gaps and challenges that employers experience in supporting or attracting newcomer employees. 

This project created a toolkit that included the teachings, information, resources, and materials developed throughout the training to further support employers across rural communities in embedding new diverse hiring practices, gaining skills to create a more welcoming workplace, and adopting inclusive policies in their organization. 

• Funder: Government of Alberta’s Settlement, Language and Integration Projects (SILP) 
• Partner: Lethbridge Family Services (LFS) 
• Partner: ASSIST Community Services Centre

This project supported over 30 rural and remote employers across north, central, and southern Alberta with resources and helped them build the capacity to meet the needs of immigrant employees, while learning best practices to create a more welcoming and inclusive organization to retain employees for the long-term.   

With the READI Toolkit, employers across Canada can access the resources and information developed to better support their organizations in meeting the needs of their newcomer employees and creating better attraction, settlement, and retention strategies to promote organizational sustainability and overall workplace inclusion. 

In Our Hands was a co-operative entrepreneurship (“co-opreneurship”) program that aimed to facilitate the development of co-operative enterprises that meet the employment needs and entrepreneurial aspirations of Canadian newcomers. The goal of the project was to support newcomers to Canada through all the stages of starting and growing a co-operative business and to test the viability of co-operative entrepreneurship as an economic mobility pathway for newcomers. The pilot project ran from January 2022 to January 2024.  

This project supported newcomers and immigrants in Alberta and British Columbia who were interested in starting businesses cooperatively. 

• Our project was funded by: World Education Services (WES) Mariam Assefa Fund 
• Partner: BC- Coop Association (BCCA) 
• Partner: Women’s Economic Council   

This project successfully increased awareness, interest, and literacy among participants regarding the co-operative enterprise model and co-operative development process. 

• 300 individuals gained information about co-operatives through in-person and online information sessions 
• 33 program applicants completed the co-ops’ 101 education through the live, in-person/online workshop or via the self-paced online Foundations Course 
• 4 newcomer co-operatives were developed from the project:  
  • CultureLinks Co-operative with 5 members 
  • Arabian Beauty Co-operative with 10 members 
  • Shift Gears International Professionals with 4 members  
  • Winning Women Multipurpose Co-operative with 8 members 

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 

Based on a previous work of RDN and The Centre for Civic Religious Literacy (CCRL) in Temiskaming Shores and our dialogue with the Temiskaming Shores & Area Chambers of Commerce (TSACC), we learned that employers in the region have a strong desire to welcome and recruit immigrants and refugees but are struggling with attraction and retention, and are not well-versed on how to engage with employees coming from different religious, spiritual, and non-religious backgrounds. The pilot project ran from November 2021 to May 2024. 

This project is funded by:  WES Mariam Assefa Fund 

Our Partners: 

• Centre for Civic Religious Literacy (CCRL) 
• Religious Freedom and Business Foundation (RFBF) 
• Temiskaming Shores & Area Chamber of Commerce (TSACC) 
• City of Temiskaming Shores  
• Keepers of the Circle 

The Employee Resource Group (ERG) was a monthly community-building and professional development opportunity that employers and employees could both attend to help new and existing workers of diverse belief backgrounds feel confident and comfortable at work to benefit both them and their workplace. Each month, the topic was based on a sacred day relevant for a certain community group (e.g. Hinduism and Sikhism in March, Islam in April, Buddhism in May, attendance to existing Pow Wow event in June, Judaism in October, Christianity in December). An average of 8 participants attended the ERGs monthly.  

The Working Together: Engaging Faith and Belief at Work Certification is a credential that demonstrates an employer’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion for employees or all backgrounds. The Certification creates a process to help employers support employees in working effectively while also living in accordance with their beliefs in ways that do not create an undue burden on the workplace. A total of 18 participants were certified.