Dear Community Member:
We invite you to browse through the OCISO Programs Catalogue where you can learn and give directly to support our programs and services. With this Programs Catalogue, we hope to raise supplementary funds to enable us provide comprehensive services to our clients.
At OCISO, we are committed to service excellence in supporting immigrants through their journey to smooth integration and citizenship. We continue to be flexible to meet the needs of immigrants in a creative and responsive manner and support immigrants to experience a sense of cultural safety, to fully participate in society, and to build our communities. Our successes have been attributed to our dedicated and enthusiastic staff, Board of Directors, volunteers and supporters such as you.
To donate to service items in the OCISO Programs Catalogue, please indicate the service item number in the Memo section of your cheque and mail to 959 Wellington St West. K1Y 2X5, Ottawa, On. You will receive a tax receipt for 100 percent of your donation.
Support Immigrants in their Journey to Integration to Ottawa
OCISO’s Community Integration Program with its multilingual, professional staff works actively to support immigrants and refugees through their journey of integration and settlement in Ottawa, while contributing their skills, talents and gifts to the community. We address the complex needs of immigrants on an individual basis and in group settings by providing core services such as career mentoring, job search, health, housing, legal aid, community projects and sponsorship, social, cultural and recreational support. Supportive counselling services are delivered to address clients’ emotional needs which very often are related to their pre and post migration experiences.
| 1. Field trip for seniors twice a year per person (max 35 people) | $30 |
| 2. Provide employment readiness kit for immigrants (includes pad folio, pen, business card holders and customized business cards) | $60 |
| 3. Publish the OCISO Welcome Guide for immigrants in English and French | $300 |
| 4. Development of the Career Mentorship Workbook | $800 |
| 5. Upgrade a Database for the Community Integration Program | $1000 |
Help Build Youth Leadership Skills
OCISO's Multicultural Liaison Officer (MLO) Program was created in 1991 to address the settlement and integration needs of immigrant and refugee children and their families in Ottawa schools. This award winning and innovative program is provided in English and French in various elementary and high schools. Every year the MLO program offers quality summer camps for almost 250 students in English and French. The students are given the opportunity to improve their English or French language skills, develop recreational, social, and leadership skills and familiarize themselves with the social service and community resources available to them in Ottawa.
| 6. Support an immigrant youth to the English summer camp | $150 |
| 7. Support an immigrant youth to the French summer camp | $150 |
| 8. Graduation Awards to recognize and encourage French immigrant students’ resilience, and contributions in school | $100 |
Support Immigrants’ Mental Health
OCISO's Clinical Counselling Program is uniquely equipped to provide multicultural counselling services to the immigrant and refugee population in Ottawa. We focus on providing services to clients with migration and culture-related issues, and specialize in assisting survivors of war trauma, political persecution, imprisonment, and torture. Our diverse team allows us to provide services to children, youth, adults, seniors, couples, and families.
| 9. Provide one hour counselling session for an immigrant | $60 |
| 10. Provide one hour counselling session for a couple / family | $75 |
| 11. Provide 5 hours training for new counsellors working with survivors of traumatic experiences | $300 |
| 12. Purchase bus tickets for a week for underprivileged clients | $20 |
| 13. Provide 2 hours of childminding support for clients at counselling sessions | $20 |
Foster Civic Engagement and Participation
OCISO’s community-based approach to Public Education promotes the principles, policies and practices of anti-racism, equity, and access through cooperation with staff, other organizations, and the broader public. The goal is to build bridges and ease the process of cultural transition for immigrants by fostering a welcoming and understanding community through workshops, presentations, training materials and public civic engagement events. The program developed “Tools for Tolerance” for teachers and provides civic education and mobilization support around the city and provincial elections, providing support for immigrant families to attend their local candidates’ forums and participate more fully in the formal political process.
| 14. Publish a “Diversity Action Teams’ manual: A Practical Guide for Educators and School Councils’ to help school councils increase the diversity of participating parents | $25 |
| 15. Delivery of a cross-cultural training session to community service providers or employers | $750 |
| 16. Host an assembly in an Ottawa school for Black History Month about black inventions, innovations, and achievements presented through storytelling, music, and art | $500 |
Engage the Francophone Community
In order to increase its operations in French and further extend its services to French speaking immigrants, OCISO strives to provide most of its materials in French.
| 17. Provide second language training in French to interested OCISO staff, volunteers, co-op students | $250 |
| 18.Produce some OCISO’s communications materials in French | $100 |
Build Capacity in Volunteers
Our over 318 dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers provide valuable support to OCISO clients and staff, by contributing over 10,000 hours annually. Volunteers provide their expertise to OCISO’s clients in areas such as employment mentoring, homework tutoring, income tax clinics, as English and French teachers and assistants in summer camps, interpreters at parent/teacher interviews, and medical appointments, facilitators for English conversation groups, teacher assistants at our LINC sites, researchers, office assistants, helpers at special events, and members of our fundraising committee.
| 19. Provide bus tickets or mileage for a volunteer for one month | $50 |
| 20. Recognize and encourage volunteers with small gifts (pens, t-shirts, bags, farewell gifts) | $60 |
| 21. Provide basic Microsoft Office training to volunteers | $40 |
Provide Technological Access to Immigrants
OCISO aims to provide its clients and community members with access to technology. With an improved technological infrastructure in place, clients will be able to perform job and housing researches, type up resumes, communicate with their friends and families in their home countries and participate in group counselling sessions.
| 22. Purchase a colour printer for adult students at Language Instruction for New Comers to Canada (LINC) sites | $300 |
| 23. Purchase 2 DVD players for the 2 LINC sites | $85 |
| 24. Purchase a DVD player for clients’ counselling sessions | $80 |
| 25. Purchase a computer for clients and community members seeking Counselling, and Community Integration help (3 needed) | $750 |