If you're a service provider or member of the general public, this program will provide strategies to increase your ability to create safer and more welcoming spaces, while supporting you to move from awareness to action. Through this process, you will be able to create more welcoming communities to help retain immigrants in Nova Scotia.

The Welcoming Communities program includes:

• Our Building Intercultural Competence workshop to increase understanding of settlement and integration issues
• Tailored workshops to respond to specific needs of service providers and communities
• Capacity-building activities with service providers and community members to create awareness of immigrant issues and systemic barriers, which include information-sharing, consultations, mediation, networking, conflict resolution, and relationship-building
• Community events to help bring newcomers and longer-term residents together.

The program format is tailored to individual service providers', community members', and partners' needs and areas of interest.

Building Intercultural Competence Workshop

Building Intercultural Competence workshop is a full-day workshop offered online or in-person with the objectives to increase your understanding of settlement and integration issues, explore practical ways to welcome and support new immigrants, and develop your intercultural relationship-building skills for working with new immigrants.

Tailored Workshops from the Welcoming Communities Program

The Welcoming Communities program is funded by Nova Scotia Immigration and Population Growth (IPG). The following workshops are therefore delivered free of cost to groups and organizations in Nova Scotia and can be tailored to your specific needs.

Each workshop has been built on the principles of adult education, and we facilitate each topic using an Anti-Racism, Anti-Oppression framework as well as a client-focused, trauma-informed approach.

1. Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) 101

This three-hour workshop offers participants an introduction to the concepts of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), and how these ideas relate to newcomers to our province.

This workshop is delivered by skilled facilitators using numerous modalities in the training such as polls, quizzes, videos, small break-out rooms, whiteboard activities, case studies (if time allows), and large group discussions.

2. Unconscious & Implicit Bias

This three-hour workshop offers participants the opportunity to understand the concepts of bias, unconscious bias, and implicit bias, and how these relate to newcomers to our province.

This workshop is delivered by skilled facilitators using numerous modalities in the training such as polls, quizzes, videos, small break-out rooms, whiteboard activities, case studies (if time allows), and large group discussions.

3. Micro-aggressions: They’re not Small

This three-hour workshop helps participants understand the seldom-discussed concept of micro-aggressions within the larger, lived realities of racism. Micro-aggressions are extremely damaging to BIPOC (people who are Black, Indigenous, or People of Colour) and newcomers to Nova Scotia. As the workshop progresses, participants will further learn concepts such as gaslighting, and what to do when witnessing micro-aggressions.

This workshop is delivered by skilled facilitators using numerous modalities in the training such as polls, quizzes, videos, small break-out rooms, whiteboard activities, case studies (if time allows), and large group discussions.

4. Power & Privilege

This intense, three-hour workshop helps participants understand concepts such as power, privilege, White privilege, White fragility, allyship, and how to be an accomplice (in the context of EDI, an accomplice is someone who helps others create a space of inclusion, equity, and safety).

Like all of our workshops, this workshop is delivered by skilled facilitators who recognize the very sensitive nature of these topics. For this workshop in particular, they take special care to create a safer, accountable space for unlearning/relearning to occur. By using numerous modalities in the training (polls, quizzes, videos, small break-out rooms, whiteboard activities, case studies (if time allows), and large group discussions), they keep the courageous conversations moving.

5. The Newcomer Immigrant Experience

On Sesame Street, they sang “Who are the people in your neighbourhood?”

In that spirit, this 3-hour workshop offers participants an inside look at newcomers living in our neighbourhoods in Nova Scotia, the challenges that they have faced getting here, and further, the challenges that they still face after arrival.

This workshop is delivered by skilled facilitators using numerous modalities in the training such as polls, quizzes, videos, small break-out rooms, whiteboard activities, case studies (if time allows), and large group discussions.

6. Celebrating our Black Heritage: Uniting People of African Descent

This three-hour workshop celebrates Black heritage while also creating an accountable, safer space for discovery and dialogue around the history, challenges, triumphs, and legacies of historic Black communities and Black immigrants.

Originally developed for Black audiences to build bridges and encourage the unification of people of African descent (Africans), a second version is now available for supporters and allies as well. As this workshop continues to evolve based on feedback, a version tailored specifically for youth will soon be available.

The workshop is delivered by skilled facilitators who recognize the very delicate nature of these spaces. By utilizing numerous modalities in the session (polls, quizzes, videos, case studies, temperature checks, and discussions), they keep the courageous conversations moving.