How one agency helps enrich Kelowna’s culture

Coming to a new country is never easy.

Whether it's language barriers, employment, or just simply making new friends, that’s where Katelin Mitchell and her colleagues come in.

Mitchell is the director of services at Kelowna Community Resources (KCR). The agency helps foster growth and diversity, from community involvement to adoption and job seeking. It also has an array of immigrant services to assist newcomers to the city.

“We are very fortunate in this region, and we have a very diverse immigration, and so we see people coming from a variety of different countries,” she told Kelowna10. “We are always amazed by the resilience and the strength that individuals are coming to our country with.”

In house, KCR workers speak over 26 languages to ensure they can help communicate and inform immigrants on a variety of things when they arrive in Canada.

According to Statistics Canada, 20,880 Kelowna residents identified as being immigrants in 2016. While Europe, particularly Germany and the United Kingdom, make up the bulk of where people are coming from, a growing number are arriving from Asia.

KCR provides information in group settings and one-on-one. It helps with government processes, finding proper benefits, and work-related assistance to help newcomers adjust to life in the Okanagan.

This can cover everything from winter driving and shovelling, to using a loonie to get a cart at the grocery store.

“We have different specialists come in and talk about insurance, and banking, and mortgages. All these things that may be new to people,” Mitchell said.

She said immigrants arrive in Kelowna from all over the world, but in some cases there’s higher influxes of individuals from countries facing crises.

“In programs like the Government-Assistance Refugee Program, KCR actually meets them right at the airport and we take them to temporary accommodation [and] provide them with all the supports right from the beginning,” she said.

Other residents who are new to the community may come to KCR with questions at a later date, or to take part in workshops and events.

For those with children, there are services within the school district to assist students and their families adjust to school in Kelowna.

Mitchell said welcoming newcomers to the community is vital for the labour market, but more importantly, for people to learn about new cultures and connect with individuals from all over the world.

“The cultural diversity that we get, the innovation, the different thoughts, different ideas, cultures,” she said. “When you bring all of that together, I think our community gets so much more enriched.”