If you're a service provider or member of the general public, this program will provide strategies to increase your ability to create safe and 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.

Program components include:

• Our Building Intercultural Competence workshop, which 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 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.

Tailored Workshops from the Welcoming Communities Program

Welcoming Communities is funded by Nova Scotia Immigration and Population Growth (IPG). The following workshops are therefore  free of cost to groups and organizations in Nova Scotia, and they can be tailored to your specific needs. An Anti-Racism, Anti-Oppressive framework is used in their delivery, as well as a client-focused, trauma-informed approach.

1. Equity Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) 101

This 3-hour workshop, built on the principles of adult education, offers participants an introduction to the concepts of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), and how these ideas relate to newcomers in our province.

The workshop will be delivered by skilled facilitators who will be using numerous modalities in the training: polls, quizzes, videos, small break-out rooms, whiteboard activities, case studies (if time allows), and large group discussions.

2. Unconscious & Implicit Bias

This 3-hour workshop, built on the principles of adult education, offers participants the opportunity to understand the concepts of bias, unconscious bias, and implicit bias, and how these relate to newcomers in our province.

The workshop will be delivered by skilled facilitators who will be using numerous modalities in the training: 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 3-hour workshop, built on the principles of adult education, offers participants the opportunity to understand the seldom-discussed concept of micro-aggressions within the larger, lived realities of racism. Micro-aggressions are extremely damaging to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) people and newcomers in NS. As the workshop progresses, participants will further learn concepts such as gaslighting, and what to do when witnessing micro-aggressions.

The workshop will be delivered by skilled facilitators who will be using numerous modalities in the training: polls, quizzes, videos, small break-out rooms, whiteboard activities, case studies (if time allows), and large group discussions.

4. Power & Privilege

This intense 3-hour workshop, built on the principles of adult education, offers participants the opportunity to understand concepts such as power, privilege, White privilege, White fragility, and allyship.

The workshop will be delivered by skilled facilitators who recognize the very sensitive nature of these topics. They create a safe and 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 will keep the courageous conversations moving.

5. The Newcomer Immigrant Experience

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

This 3-hour workshop,  built on the principles of adult education, 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.

The workshop will be delivered by skilled facilitators who will be using numerous modalities in the training: 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, built on the principles of adult education, celebrates Black heritage while also creating an accountable, safe space for discovery and dialogue around the history, challenges, and legacies of historic Black communities and for Black immigrants. Originally developed for Black audiences to build bridges and encourage the unification of people of African descent (Africans), a version is available for accomplices 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 will be 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 will keep the courageous conversations moving.