Three Aurora College nursing students have developed a booklet designed to help immigrants settle in Yellowknife, in their own language.
The booklet, available in English, Tagalog, and Arabic, walks newcomers through the city’s basic services and how to access them.
Students Stephanie Castro, John Mark Mabilog, and Fatima Ullah say their own experiences made clear the need for something to help Filipino and Arabic-speaking immigrants.
“This booklet is created to make integration to life in Canada easier for them,” Ullah told Cabin Radio at a launch reception for the booklet on Thursday.
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“It’s specifically aimed at Filipino and Muslim immigrants coming to Yellowknife. It has information on education, employment, legal aid services, social services, and housing.
“Just having friends and family here – when they moved to Yellowknife, seeing the struggles they had with understanding what services are available and how to access them, I saw we needed a resource.”
The three third-year students worked with translators to put together the booklet, which contains around 100 pages between the three languages.
They were supported by the Philippine Cultural Association of Yellowknife, the Islamic Centre of Yellowknife, and the college’s integration advisor, Jestine Amora.
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“Last semester, we had a course about empowering our community. We went out, surveyed people, and identified there was a need for this,” said Mabilog.
For him, one of the main challenges will be keeping the booklet updated as services and information change in future.
However, the three are undaunted and hope to soon launch booklets in other languages.
“We want to collaborate with other organizations: people from the Chinese and Vietnamese communities want to work with us and have the booklet in their language,” said Mabilog.
“Our next semester’s project is all about leadership, so we can bring all of those organizations together and work with them.”
