The Riverdale Immigrant Women’s Centre experienced a surge in demand for our services in 2023/24, with many of our programs exceeding our targets for participation. Collectively, we served over 529 clients representing over 44 countries! As always, our program and project teams rose to the challenge. They came up with practical solutions to ensure responsive programming and timely service delivery and provided referrals to essential supports through our extensive network of community partners, ensuring our clients’ well-being remained a top priority.

Our VAW program expanded its eligibility criteria to include those who identify as non-binary and gender non-conforming, thereby making the program more inclusive. The intake process was streamlined to ensure swift engagement and retention. Clients are now transitioned out of counselling through ‘gentle closures’, giving them more agency in their decision to close the therapeutic relationship.

In 2023, the employment training programs responded to an influx of refugee claimants by providing them with information on employment and educational opportunities to gain the experience needed to succeed in the Canadian workplace at levels that corresponded with their qualifications. We also received a significant increase in referrals of refugees to the Wrap Around program. Due to the lack of shelter accommodation and the steep rise in the cost of living, housing support became the focus of this program.

Our popular 2SLGBTQ+ BIPOC Wellness Group came to an end this year; however, the toolkits we developed and positive feedback from participants will encourage more gender-based wellness programs and services in the future.

We expanded our seniors’ programming by launching a 2SLGBTQI+ drop-in initiative this year. Through intergenerational mentorship support and workshops, seniors were able to perform day to day tasks easier and access new community services with the digital literacy skills they acquired.

In 2023, our Anti-Racism Action Project (ARAP) introduced education workshops, conversation groups and in-person crisis and referral supports to address rising rates of anti-Muslim hate-motivated incidences and hate crimes in the city.

We continued to strengthen our capacity to deliver our services with funding from WAGE and Toronto Foundation. Through a strategic planning process, we updated our mission and mandate to reinvigorate our purpose and direction. We developed a fundraising strategy to inform our grant seeking activities. We also updated our policies and procedures to ensure continued compliance with applicable legislation and regulations. With these infrastructure improvements, we will be better able to respond to stakeholder needs.

We love hearing stories from our clients who ‘felt heard and empowered’ and “extremely motivated and enthusiastic about starting a first job in Canada”, or how a counsellor’s “kind words gave them strength”. We are grateful to be a part of our clients’ journey towards achieving their goals and to our staff, placement students, and volunteers for accompanying them with the dedication and compassion that we have come to rely upon.