Immigrant Women’s Leadership & Employment Mentorship Project
Newcomer women were at the center of this work and applied the critical lens of lived-experience through which the findings were filtered, analyzed and presented. Newcomer women were engaged as peer researchers, participating in skill-development and capacity-building training sessions, and then conducting community-based research to inform the development of strategies supporting newcomer women’s economic self-sufficiency and successful labour market participation. YWCA formed a key partnership with Dr. Delores Mullings (Memorial University, School of Social Work) and together, coordinated with government, community, and industry partners to host ‘Opportunity Knocks’, a symposium focused on multicultural women in leadership. The event, held in March 2019, sought to identify ways to support and encourage women from diverse cultural backgrounds to make long-term attachments to employment in their communities by identifying the barriers and challenges faced in gaining economic self-sufficiency. This project contributed to local knowledge about the experiences of newcomer women in Newfoundland and Labrador, and created opportunities for newcomers to participate in identifying the challenges and barriers they face, as well as developing the solutions to increase their ability to participate equally and fully in the labour market.