Nurse transitions to new community

Nurse transitions to new community

Islam Hajras is an internationally educated nurse who arrived in Canada with her four underage children in July 2022, and applied for refugee status. Islam was born and raised in Palestine. A few months after her arrival, Islam started to search for a job. “I faced...
Helping others is happiness

Helping others is happiness

By Claudine Nduwimana Muhammad Khalil has been a volunteer at CCI for a little more than four years. Since coming to Canada as a refugee, he has found helping others a source of joy and a way to create lasting friendships. We talked to him about his volunteer...
Working with youth to find jobs

Working with youth to find jobs

Newcomers to Ottawa all have one thing in common. They want to give back to their community as soon as possible. That’s true of youth newcomers as well. That’s why the Catholic Centre for Immigrants Youth Program has a job program that helps young people...
IKEA program hires newcomers

IKEA program hires newcomers

The Catholic Centre for Immigrants has partnered up with IKEA Canada to help newcomers land jobs at the popular home furnishings store. The IKEA Canada’s Refugee Employment Program launched earlier this year and CCI’s employment team has been working with newcomers to...
Finding her own way to college

Finding her own way to college

By Haiqa Khattak I remember the day I visited the University of Ottawa’s admission office with my education transcripts from my home country of Pakistan. I had completed high school pre-medical in my country. The lady at the information desk showed me the...