The Southwest Saskatchewan Immigration Partnership (SSIP) is the Local Immigration Partnership in our region that engages in strategic planning, research, and collaboration with service providers and other institutions to support the settlement and integration of newcomers.
SSIP recently completed a survey as coordinator for SSIP Deanna Baje explains.
"It's about the region's capacity in settling and integrating newcomers. It's a newcomer survey stakeholder views on the characteristics, indicators and capacities of southwest Saskatchewan as a welcoming community."
This is the second survey done as the first was conducted in 2019.
In addition, Baje provides some insight into the survey results.
"We were pleased to note that the survey brought about Swift Current and the southwest Saskatchewan region is perceived by newcomers as a welcoming community."
According to Baje, there are areas that have improved and areas that need to be worked on but the overall result was good for the community.
In a press release from SSIP, results from the survey are based on the seventeen “Characteristics of a Welcoming Community” (2010, Esses et al), the survey provided several key findings from the 66 respondents. These include:
· The City of Swift Current and the Southwest Saskatchewan region are still regarded by newcomer community stakeholders as welcoming communities. Some areas have even shown significant increases in their capacities, e.g., Availability of Jobs, Support for Finding Jobs, and Post-secondary Educational Opportunities.
· In line with the characteristics of a welcoming community, there are adequate capacities in the city as well as the region, however, there are still allowances for improvements, e.g., Attitudes Toward Immigration, Availability of Rental Housing, and Availability of Housing for Sale.
· Several areas demonstrated a slight decline in their capacities. The negative impact on Educational Opportunities for K-12, Fostering of Social Capital in General Community, Access to Medical Services, Access to Religious Services and Organizations, Access to Public Spaces and Recreational Activities, Social Engagement Opportunities with the Community as a Whole, and Social Engagement with Members of Own Ethnocultural Group may be partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
SSIP will use the data from the survey for local sediment strategies and this will guide them in how they can help newcomers in their settlement and integration especially within this region specifically.
Baje adds that they hope that based on the newcomer's viewpoints, they will be able to specify what their needs are and act on those.
SSIP are looking forward to more projects in the future and anyone looking for more information about them can visit their website.