New Canadians Have New Opportunties

Statistics show that using sport is one of the most effective and fastest ways that New Canadians can assimilate into Canadian society. SIRC recently attended a “Sport and Diversity” session hosted by SPORT4ONTARIO at the Sport Alliance Building in Toronto, where three organizations presented on how they are expanding their services to insure that there are programs directed towards assisting New Canadians integrate into the rich Canadian sporting community.

The Coaches Association of Ontario (CAO) was awarded a grant from the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration and the Strategic Partnership Initiatives Youth Opportunities Program (SPIYOP). They are hosting 10 Coach Education For Newcomer Youth workshops in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) for newly landed Canadians ages 15-24, who are not currently attending school. The program provides an exceptional education in fair play, responsibility and safety, and child development phases, and each participant receives a coach workbook and resources, as well as a trained NCCP status in the national database. A great start to a new coaching life.

The Toronto Sports Council (TSC) was awarded a grant from True Sport to help increase the number of trained and certified youth sport leaders in the Jane-Finch communities in north Toronto. As a result, the communities will have a greater capacity to provide high quality sport programming opportunities for school age children.

And since soccer is such a global sport, most New Canadians arrive in Canada with a great amount of passion for the game already. The Ontario Soccer Association’s (OSA) “Soccer and Settlement” project connects New Canadians with organized, sanctioned soccer groups in specified communities and by doing so, they are linking communities and developing partnerships with other organizations that will serve to develop coach, referee and volunteer leaders for the future. Currently partnered with the Catholic Immigration Centre (CIC) which works with newcomers in the Ottawa area, they are connecting 66 soccer clubs in the nation’s capital with the OSA’s initiatives. The OSA is also creating a coaching program to train adult newcomers to coach or referee the game.

For more information on sporting programs for New Canadians, please visit SIRC.