United Way Greater Toronto funds over 300 social service agencies in Peel, Toronto and York Region. Many of the programs offer services targeted to the demographic living in that neighbourhood.
Women often face different barriers while accessing services. Cultural norms or personal comfort levels can make it difficult for some women to participate in mixed-gender settings for activities such as learning English, seeking employment or community programs.
Women’s centres – like the Rexdale Women’s Centre – are created to primarily serve women. These centres are often staffed by people who have been through their own challenges, so they understand first-hand the clients’ needs.
“You feel like you know nothing. Nothing. And you question your choices. What you did to your family, why did you bring them here?” says Basima Toma, who moved to Canada from Turkey with her husband and their four children in 2017. Despite having family here, she explains “the organization [Polycultural Immigration] was the one who supported me. Not the family.”
Toma now works on the Community Connection team at Rexdale Community Centre. The team manages social work student placements at the centre, organizes English conversation circles twice a week – one session for women only – and helps with events to create networking opportunities for the community. The Centre, situated in Etobicoke, serves a residential area that is rich in diversity with African, Punjabi, Arab, and Spanish communities.
Toma said her experience as a newcomer is what guides her. The countless families she’s seen in her programs remind her of herself and the challenges she faced. “When I came to Canada, for me, everything was blind, black.”
She remembers feeling helpless with everything – submitting documents for permanent residency, health card, opening her bank account, registering her kids in school. The help she got back then from Polycultural Immigration, is what she wants to give back.
One of the programs Toma feels is important for newcomers is the English conversation circle. Although simple, it helps people feel confident in themselves.
Toma recalls a conversation with a client who moved from Turkey with her husband and their four children, just like herself. She asked the client what she thought of being in Canada. “‘I can’t live here,’ she said. I said, ‘Why?’ She said, ‘I can’t afford the rent, I can’t do anything.’”
“Just believe in yourself,” she told her. Toma says that was all she needed to hear.
It has been about four months now since the client started coming to the English conversation circle, and the change is evident. For Toma, the smiles on clients’ faces as they find themselves standing on their feet, is the success of the job.
The centre also has a very popular seniors’ program.
“The community often thinks, they [seniors] don’t need anything. They don’t realize that they want to do a lot of activities. They want to do whatever they couldn’t do when they were busy,” says Naureen Tapassun, Community Engagement Worker for seniors at the Rexdale Women’s Centre.
Tapassun coordinates programs like yoga lessons, drawing sessions, dance classes and inter-generational discussions for seniors.
The satisfaction of feeling engaged in community, is what makes them keep coming to the centre. “They feel socially satisfied. They make friends, mingle with them – what they couldn’t do in the past.”
These are just two of many programs at the centre.
The centre’s vision is for “immigrant, refugee and newcomer women and their families to effectively settle and integrate into Canadian society.”
There are more than 100 women’s organizations and services in the Greater Toronto Area and each of these offer a variety of services. Some focus on specific issues like pregnancy: Birthright Brampton helps pregnant women find community and support. Other programs provide youth and children services sponsored by United Way and Etobicoke Brighter Future Coalition, which is another beneficiary of United Way.
Organizations like Rexdale Women’s Centre and Brighter Future Coalition are just two of the women’s centres that offer safe spaces with support programs and the comfort of not being alone.
Tapassun has advice for people who she meets at the Rexdale Centre. “Live your life. This is the only one we have, so come here and enjoy your life. Live your life to the fullest.”
This story was produced as part of a partnership between Centennial College journalism students and United Way Greater Toronto.
