Summary of Programs
Name of Program
|
Demographics Served
|
# Volunteers (/year)
|
# Clients (/year)
|
Program Description
|
Food Bank
|
Low-Income clients, usually Francophone newcomers to Canada
|
100
|
3000
|
A weekly food bank held at La Cité Francophone in the Boonie Doon
neighbourhood of Edmonton (largely French-speaking); more than 700 kg. of
food distributed every week to over 20-25 families.
|
Driver Training
|
Francophones seeking to obtain Class 7 driver’s licence, usually Francophone
newcomers to Canada or youths seeking to obtain their learner’s permit.
|
25
|
350
|
A 6-hour driver training workshop delivered in English and
simultaneously interpreted in French.
Following the workshop (the very same day), we transport participants
in our organization’s van to a
nearby Registry office to allow them to write their theoretical exam in order
to obtain their Class 7 licence.
|
Health Navigator
|
Francophones facing linguistic barriers, in particular members of
various all French-speaking ethnocultural communities in Edmonton; elderly
French speakers
|
10
|
200
|
Transportation to medical appointments; accompaniment and
interpretation of English-language medical personnel. Additionally, we
accompany/transport elderly Francophones to French-language health clinics in
Edmonton, such as Centre Saint-Thomas and Manoir Saint-Joachin.
|
Meals by Bus
|
First Nations and homeless persons, people in need
|
80
|
1200
|
Delivery of hot meals to homeless individuals in the inner city. Many
of these persons are from First Nations communities.
We receive hot meals from various partner restaurants in Edmonton,
such as Domino’s Pizza and
Normand’s.
|
Moving Crew
|
Those requiring the service of a mover, oftentimes Francophones. The
volunteers are varied, but often African newcomers to Canada.
|
50
|
400
|
3-hour moving sessions in which volunteers help people moving to new
houses to pack up their belongings, transport items to the new residence and
then help to unload them.
|
Protocol Crew
|
All of our volunteers, of all nationalities and ages.
|
250
|
35
|
Volunteer placements at various community events, such as festivals,
bicycle races, casino fundraisers, etc. Over 35 organizations served to date.
|
Administrative Assistant
|
Various volunteers of working-age seeking work experience to prepare
for full-time, remunerated employment (often in an administrative role);
various nationalities (French, Algerian, Belgian, Tunisian, Senegalese,
Moroccan, etc.).
|
10
|
N/A
|
Volunteer administrative work in our office. This program is a great
gateway to full-time, paid administrative work in other organizations.
|
New Horizons
|
Francophone elders and youths, mostly Canadian citizens by birth.
|
15
|
80
|
Workshops detailing computer use and accessibility, various day trips
in and around Edmonton to sites of historical and cultural interest. We also
host activities linking generations, in which Francophone youths and seniors
participate together to transmit cultural values and intergenerational
understanding.
|
Community Service Learning (CSL)
|
University Students and those impacted by their voluntary service
|
20
|
20
|
In collaboration with the University of Alberta (North Campus and
Campus Saint-Jean), we provide volunteer placements and training to students
required to fulfill a prescribed number of hours of volunteer work in
exchange for academic credit. These students may volunteer in a number of our
established volunteer programs, and most often participate in running our
food bank every week. They are also placed in the Protocol Crew when the need
arises.
|
Extrajudicial Sanctions Program
|
Youths in contravention of the law sentenced to community service
pursuant to the guidelines prescribed by the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
|
48
|
48
|
Pursuant to the Youth Criminal
Justice Act, youths convicted of offences may be ordered to perform a
prescribed number of hours of volunteer work in the community as a form of
restitution. In partnership with the Alliance Jeunesse-Famille Society de l’Alberta (Alberta Youth-Family
Alliance Society), a designated community volunteer in partnership with
Corrections Canada which helps to administer such sentences, we receive on
average 4 references per month, which lead to the placement of convicted
youths within our volunteer programs (in particular the food bank). These can
be punishments for offenses such as theft under $5000.
|
Description of CANAVUA’s programs and services and the
demographics which they principally serve. Since CANAVUA’s founding in 2009, we have
recruited, trained and deployed over 700 volunteers. Several Francophone agencies in the
Edmonton are concerned about volunteer placement, but none have a primary
mission of promoting and enhancing volunteering within the Francophone
community.
Demographic Profile of our Clientele
Canadian Volunteers United in
Action Society (CANAVUA) is a Francophone non-profit organization whose mission
and mandate are to promote and enhance volunteering in Alberta’s Francophone community, especially
in the Edmonton area. In recent years, the French-speaking population of
Edmonton and Alberta as a whole have become increasingly comprised of
Francophone immigrants to Canada, most of whom come from among the
French-speaking countries of Africa (as well, to a lesser degree, as Europe).
These newcomers are admitted to Canada as economic migrants, refugees, and
family class immigrants. As such, the demographics of our clientele are varied
and diverse, yet include overwhelmingly newcomers to Canada and to Alberta.
Certain, noticeable patterns
have arisen with regard to the national origins of both our volunteers and
clientele (recipients of our services). Notably, we deal routinely with a great
many people from the Democratic Republic
of Congo, the Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Mali, Burundi, Senegal, Rwanda,
Togo, Central African Republic, Gabon, Benin, and Cameroon. Additionally,
we encounter many people from North Africa, who come from bilingual
French-Arabic speaking nations such as
Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and, while not officially Francophone (but a
former French colony, where French is still widely spoken), Egypt. The majority of our volunteers
and clientele come from these above-mentioned countries.
Due to the economic hardships
faced throughout Africa, especially in the sub-Saharan, equatorial, Francophone
countries, many of our volunteers and clients from these parts should rightly
be considered as being disadvantaged economically. Our services, such as our
weekly food bank, are accordingly indispensable to helping such people “get on their feet,” as it were, upon their arrival in
Canada. It should be noted that many of our clients are refugees, and as such
need training in the Canadian workforce norms so that they can become self-sufficient.
Further to this end, our driver training and Health Navigator medical
transportation and interpretation services also make invaluable contributions
to helping newcomers (and Francophones of all sorts) establish themselves
securely and comfortably in Edmonton by assisting their overcoming of numerous
barriers to community integration.
Of course, not all our
volunteers and clients are newcomers, or even French speakers for that matter.
As an organization, we seek to include everyone in the sense of community
service and solidarity. Indeed, we have attracted over the years and continue
to attract immigrants from France, Belgium, and Francophones and
Anglophones from Alberta alike who have lived in Canada all their lives. Many
of these volunteers are, for example, students who perform volunteer work in
exchange for academic credit. Other Canadian volunteers get in touch with us
via references from friends and family. Through our large network of contacts
in the community, our organization is ever growing, day by day.
The ages of our volunteers and
clients are as varied as their national origins. Some of our programs, such as
New Horizons, are specifically targeted towards the elderly and youth. Others,
such as the Food Bank and Health Navigator, are appropriate for people of all
ages who may find themselves in need, but customarily we are met with a younger
clientele of working age (and especially young families, in the case of the
food bank, who simply need a bit of assistance putting food on the table). For
the most part, however, our programs are not tailored to target specific age
ranges of any sort. Rather, all are welcome to receive our services.
A number of the clients who pass
through our doors are Francophones from Eastern Canada, as well, specifically
from Quebec and Ontario. French-speakers who move to Alberta from out east
often have similar needs profiles to those who have moved to Canada from
abroad, i.e. assistance from the food bank, help with moving, driver training
in some cases, etc. As with everyone else, our doors are always open to such
people, whom we welcome enthusiastically.
Our Driver Training program,
while open to all, serves as a good case study in how we serve two broad
demographics simultaneously. On the one hand, many newcomers to Canada find that
their driver’s licenses
expire quickly upon arrival or are not even accepted. It is required that they
begin the Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) program from the very beginning,
that is to say from the Class 7 (Learner’s) licence. Additionally, the rules
of the road in Alberta may differ from their countries of origin. Being fluent
in French but limited in English, these newcomers find receiving training in
their mother tongue and English at the same time is an invaluable service. The
need for driver education in French/English has been compounded by the Queen’s Printer’s recent decision to stop printing
the Alberta Driver’s Handbook in
French. While the French edition of the handbook remains online in PDF format,
many French-speaking newcomers find receiving in-class instruction in both
languages to be very helpful. It should be borne in mind that many newcomers
struggle with computer literacy, having had limited access to the technology we
take for granted back in their home countries. We have noticed that demand for
printed copies of the handbook persists and as such, the supplementary
class-time is viewed as a helpful compensatory measure.
Meanwhile, youths also benefit
from driver training in that it prepares them to write their driver’s test to obtain a Class 7 licence.
Immigrant youths in particular benefit from receiving instruction in French, in
which language they are much stronger than in English in many cases. In a
similar manner, most of CANAVUA’s programs and
services are designed so as to cater to as many people as possible, many of
whom are newcomers and disadvantaged in other ways.
These interactions have inspired us to
specifically tailor our programming and services to the needs of those who
regularly pass through our doors. It is for this reason that CANAVUA’s mission of volunteerism is so
pointedly directed toward targeting newcomers in particular. It is an added
benefit for such people that volunteering serves as an effective gateway to
full-time, remunerated employment. We submit this description of the
demographic profile of our volunteers and clients, as well as the above table
outlining our programs and which populations in particular they serve, in order
to paint a clearer picture of who we are, with whom we work, and what niche we
serve in Edmonton’s growing and
evolving Francophone and non-profit communities.
Dicky Dikamba
Executive Director
Canadian Volunteers
United in Action Society (CANAVUA)
July 14th, 2017
July 14th, 2017
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