Foothills Community Immigrant Services (FCIS) and the Town of Okotoks want to encourage newcomers to come, stay and feel welcome in the community.
The Welcoming Okotoks Project aims to do just that by helping to develop the capacity and readiness of the community to support, welcome and retain immigrants through various initiatives.
FCIS representatives told council this week there are approximately 7,900 immigrants living in Okotoks, comprised of both intra-provincial and inter-provincial newcomers, temporary foreign workers and foreign students.
The most visible minorities are Philippinos, followed by South Asian, Black, Latin American and Chinese.
Canada and Alberta have both been open about commitments to welcome more people and organizations like FCIS say this is an opportunity to attract newcomers to rural communities and highlight opportunities available in smaller centres.
The Welcoming Okotoks Project would identify gaps and barriers to inclusion, provide community capacity building, create pathways to attract newcomers to town and develop an inclusion training guide in support to providers, employers, community members and the Town.
FCIS said this would be done in several phases – an already-complete community assessment and equity audit, a community resources directory, the establishment of key partnerships, the creation of a committee, a webpage and marketing campaign.
"Newcomers will benefit because local service providers will be better suited to support them and help address their basic settlement needs," they said. "Employers will benefit by tapping into a pool of ready and motivated workers eager to fill a diverse range of roles and interested in launching a careers in the area."
The organization also wants to host networking and business forums for the community and potentially create a welcoming hub or information centre.
Welcoming Okotoks will be a community action plan developed by the community, for the community, they said.
Anyone is able to join the planning committee to help identify and develop strategies to encourage community engagement in welcoming newcomers and leverage and enhance those resources to help families get better settled.
