Canada provides financial benefits for eligible families, including newcomer families, in Canada. These include the Canada Learning Bond, the Canada Child Benefit and recreational subsidies.
If you have young children then childcare may be an important consideration for you. Childcare will allow you to attend English or retraining classes and to pursue employment after you arrive. Education is compulsory for children between the ages of 6 to 16, and your settlement team will work with you to locate the local school that your child will go to.
We know that many people had their education interrupted when they left their countries of origin but would like to re-start it in Canada. Whether you have completed an advanced degree, attended technical schools, or were were not able to attend formal schooling at all, there are opportunities to continue your education as a newcomer.
LGBTQ+ newcomers may face additional challenges as they negotiate the effects of long-term detention but also issues around sexual and gender identity or gender expression. Here are resources that work specifically to help LGBTQ+ newcomers to Canada.
While each newcomer will bring their own personality and tenacity to the job of settling in, we wanted to share our thoughts on some common experiences of refugee newcomers with special consideration for those who have survived infinite detention.
Every newcomer who arrives in Canada will find it challenging to adjust to their new lives. You may come here alone or you may come here with family or friends. You are thrilled to leave the uncertainty and trauma of detention, but you don’t know what waits for you. In addition to the things that most newcomers experience, refugees from PNG and Nauru have faced significant trauma during their period of prolonged detention. This is in addition to the traumas you may have experienced that caused you to flee in the first place.
Self-determination is important for those arriving from Manus and Nauru, who have not been able to make their own decisions and control their own lives for over 8 years. Even though settlement teams will give them the best information possible to make decisions, ultimately it is their right to make their own choices regarding their bodies, their healthcare, their education, their work and every facet of their lives.
In addition to trauma, there are barriers that limit the ability of LGBTQI+ newcomers to belong to a new community. When LGBTQI+ newcomers are caught in between the struggle to belong to a new community and the need to keep connection with or disconnect from their original community, they often tend to slip into isolation….
Canada has what is called a “universal health-care system”. This system is publicly funded and is paid for through taxes. “Medicare” is the term that refers to Canada’s publicly funded healthcare system, and each province and territory are responsible for the management and delivery of healthcare to its residents.
There are many parts to the application process, some of which happen in Canada, and some of which occur overseas at the Canadian visa office. Unfortunately, private sponsorship is not a quick process and there is no exact timeline for how long each step will last. But we hope this step-by-step outline will make the process a little more clear.
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