Skills for Change

Celebrating 20 years of service excellence
to New Canadians

SfCeNews
July 30, 2003
Volume 4  Issue 07

Skills for Change (SfC) is a non-profit agency based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Our mandate is to provide learning and training opportunities for immigrants and refugees so that they can participate in the workplace and wider community.

In this edition...

New Pioneers Awards Nominations
Summer Information Sessions
Internationally-trained Engineer Licensure
Volunteer of the Month
SfC Human Resource Services
Coretec Boosts Morale
Information Brochures Available
ONIP.online Update
TechSkills Fall Course Offerings
Featured Speakers at DERC
Programs and Services Updates

2004 New Pioneers Awards
Thursday, March 25, 2004

Nomination deadline is
Tuesday, October 7, 2003

Click here for more information
 

Vijie Kula has been a volunteer at Skills for Change since June 2002. She provides administrative support to TechSkills.

A civil engineer by profession, Vijie came to Canada from Sri Lanka in 2002.

Upon arrival in Toronto, she connected right away with Skills for Change and enrolled in several ESL/skills development courses. While training, Vijie volunteered to help in the Job Search Centre.  There she gained experience assisting students with use of the centre's facilities.

In Sri Lanka, Vijie worked as a Guidance Counselor and Trainer with the Sri Lankan National Apprentice and Industrial Training Authority. There, she coached individuals on employment related issues, coordinated research development and provided counseling to adults.

In Canada, facilitation and counseling are what Vijie wants to focus on as a career. At Skills for Change, she has gained knowledge of the issues facing new immigrants and has been exposed to the many programs that address these needs. In fact, Vijie helps in the Monday orientation and assessment sessions, in which she administers bookkeeping and keyboarding tests to accountants. She also observes various classes to gain expertise in group facilitation.

Skills for Change is happy to have provided Vijie an opportunity to gain work experience in Canada.
 

for Employers

Does your company want to attract high quality candidates to fill existing or new positions? Is your Human Resources Department looking for professional development programs to help staff reach their full potential and increase productivity? Does your diverse workforce experience barriers to good communication?

Skills for Change can help your organization meet these challenges through our Human Resource Services for Employers.
 

Visit to Coretec Inc. Boosts Morale

In mid-July, the Job Search Workshop (JSW) program organized a facility visit to Coretec Inc. - one of Canada's leading manufacturer of electronic circuit boards.

A total of 16 foreign-trained engineering professionals, from a wide variety of SfC programs, participated in the visit. After a brief presentation about the company by Robert Burnett, Corporate Training Manager, clients were taken on a tour. Paul Cooke, an Application Engineer with Coretec, led the tour.

The life cycle of the manufacturing process was demonstrated, a presentation on Canadian Industry Standards and Practices conducted, and an hour long question and answer session finished the day.

Afterwards a client wrote: "After staying unemployed for almost a period of four months, the visit to Coretec not only gave us an idea about Canadian hi-tech industries but it also boosted our morale to compete and find niches in the Canadian employment market. Highly informative in nature, the visit touched on some of the breathtaking aspects of modern manufacturing techniques. It was a visit hard to fade away from our minds in the foreseeable future!"

Two New Information Brochures Now Available

SfC Programs and Services and SfC Human Resource Services for Employers are two new information brochures now available from Skills for Change. For a print version, please contact us by e-mail or at 416-658-3101.

Check out what's new at

Your Clients Need a Professional Network? We Have Mentors
The Online Mentoring Program for International Professionals has free mentors in the fields of mechanical engineering, civil engineering, accounting and quality assurance. Give your clients the chance for finding professional contacts and insider advice in their field by referring them to the Online Mentoring Program. To find out more, go to http://www.onip.ca/mentoring.php, or send an e-mail to mentoring@onip.ca.


Employment Options for International Professionals
A 2000 Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities study found that if foreign-trained professionals took jobs unrelated to their field, they were less likely to ultimately enter their chosen profession. Yet many have to take these jobs to survive.

In each filed though there are entry-level jobs which are not dead-end. To find more about such jobs, check the “Relevant Employment Options” articles on ONIP.online.

Each industry section of the site features information on relevant employment. Currently you can find articles about Personal Support Worker, Health Educator, Educational Assistant, and general information on finding relevant employment. More occupations will be featured next week.


Online Networking Group for Service Providers supporting Internationally-trained Engineers
A new ONIP.online initiative was test-run in June. A group of service providers working with internationally-trained engineers met online twice to discuss professional issues of common interest. Chantal Symes, career management practitioner from Skills for Change moderated the chat sessions. The topics were “Helping Clients to Get Canadian Professional Experience” and “Editing Resumes for Engineers”.

If you would like to learn more about this group, or start another group (example: Job Developers in the Niagara Area), send an e-mail to coordinator@onip.ca
 

ONIP.online is a project of Skills for Change,
funded by Volunteer@ction.online
and the Ontario Trillium Foundation

To register, call 416 658-3101 ext. 218
 

Are you in the IT/Multimedia Industry or in a Computer Related Field? The Information Technology/Multimedia Industry is constantly changing and so are employers’ needs. Are you adapting to the changing needs of the IT/Multimedia Industry? If not, you may become obsolete!

Attend our special Speakers’ Series this month and gain valuable job search tips while taking advantage of this opportunity to network.

Acronym Soup

Confused? Don't be. Here's a list of our agency acronyms, what they mean and (where applicable) a link to the program web page.
 

CES	Clerical Employment Services
CIS	Cultural Interpreting Service
EAS	Employment Assistance Services
EPRS	Employment for Retail Services
ERC	Employment Resource Centre
FOAP	Finance & Office Assistant Program
IAT	Intake, Assessment and Training
JSC	Job Search Centre
JSW	Job Search Workshop
LINC	Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada
ONIP	Ontario Network for Internationally-training Professionals Online
NPA	New Pioneers Awards
STIC	Sector Terminology Information & Counselling

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