Community Development and Capacity Building

ISSofBC is currently involved in several multi-year community development/capacity building initiatives targeting specific ethno-cultural communities, gender and/or age groups within Metro Vancouver. The underlying principle is to work with immigrants and refugees to enhance their capacity to address self-identified community issues and priorities. ISSofBC has assisted a number of different groups over the years starting from the provision of adaptation and settlement services to community development and most recently community economic development activities.

Recent and On-Going Activities:

  • ISSofBC and a group of Afghan women launched a multi-year process to assist in the creation of an Afghan Women’s Sewing and Handicraft Co-op in partnership with various partners and funders -- the Canadian Community Economic Development Network, Vibrant Burnaby, Unitarian Church of Vancouver, Vancity Community Foundation and the Status of Women;
  • ISSofBC has been increasingly deploying staff to provide workshops and settlement services within various religious facilities in our service area, recognizing the role and importance of faith groups in assisting newcomers. Building on our settlement services to the Filipino community, ISSofBC initiated a capacity building project with 8 Filipino church leaders in Vancouver, Burnaby and Richmond to better support the settlement process of newcomers who are members of their congregations. Specialized training and information sessions were designed and delivered to over 20 church pastors and lay counsellors;
  • The Smokecreen Project created by Access to Media Education Society (AMES) in partnership with ISSofBC worked together with immigrant and refugee youth to develop anti-tobacco counter–marketing campaign messages that were aired on television in 2006.
  • A multi-year Food Security program was established in partnership with Quest and Food Banks targetting primarily Afghan and Kurdish communities in Vancouver, Burnaby and the Tri-Cities (Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam & Port Moody) area. One specific outcome has been a highly successful Kurdish community kitchen in East Vancouver as well as an emerging community kitchen for Afghans in Coquitlam.
  • Communication mechanisms within new and emerging communities is often a critical need in their community development process. ISSofBC worked with Kurdish community leaders to create a Kurdish community bulletin as well as a Kurdish weekly radio program on Vancouver's Co-op radio station.
  • Most ethno-cultural communities strive to form new organizations to promote their needs and issues. ISSofBC has assisted several groups to receive Board orientation training. Most recently Kurdish community members took this training in order to develop a new society.
  • With the steady arrival of high numbers of Afghan refugees over the past five years, ISSofBC helped form the "Afghans Together" project consisting of various family support group activities involving grass roots community members/leaders.
  • ISSofBC has been working with the Burnaby School Board and the Afghan community as part of a two-year demonstration project to develop, test and evaluate a new integrated service delivery framework to better support newly arrived refugee children and youth entering the public school system with little or no formal education experience.

Contact Information:

530 Drake Street
Vancouver, BC, V6B 2H3
Phone: 604.684.7498

Funded By:

  • United Way of the Lower Mainland
  • Vancouver Foundation
  • Department of Canadian Heritage
  • Hamber Foundation
  • Vancity Credit Union
  • Vancity Community Foundation
  • Whittal Family Foundation
  • Business Objects Foundation
  • City of Burnaby – Vibrant Burnaby
  • Unitarian Church of Vancouver
  • Access to Media Education Society / The Tobacco Control Programme of Health Canada
  • Status Of Women
  • Canadian CED Network