Resources
Employment-Related Training for Immigrant Women
Volume 1, Number 1
Introduction
Contents
Introduction
Immigrant
Women and Training:
A Framework
Leela Viswanathan
Training
for whom? For what?
Reflections on the meaning of training for garment workers
Roxanne Ng, Ph.D.
On March 29, 2001, in Toronto, over 60 individuals participated in Employment-Related Training for Immigrant Women, a forum on the role of employment and training in the settlement of immigrant women. The forum was a partnership initiative of the Toronto Training Board, the Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) – Toronto Chapter, the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians (CASSA) and the Hispanic Development Council (HDC).
The forum opened with a panel moderated by Elizabeth McIsaac, Executive Director of the Association of International Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (AIPSO). The first panellist, Leela Viswanathan, then Policy Research Analyst with the Toronto Training Board, provided a demographic and policy context on training and employment for immigrant women. Ana Paredes, a member of the Hispanic Development Council and an employment counsellor at the Employment Counselling Centre, then provided information on the eligibility criteria and process for accessing the Skills Development Employment Benefit program. (As this information has changed since that time, her comments have not included here.) Closing the panel was Professor Roxana Ng from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, who recounted the experiences of immigrant women in the garment industry and their efforts to initiate and participate in new learning environments.
While the facts, figures and socio-political context of training and employment for immigrant women may have changed since this forum, the essential argument remains the same: training only acquires meaning when it is envisioned and realized to respond to the lives of those who most need it. As Professor Ng points out, it is only when we examine how the dilemmas of immigrants, women, parents, employees, students and so on are interrelated that we can create training opportunities that immigrant women can participate in. The narratives presented here allow us not only to fully imagine the challenges faced by immigrant women, but also to imagine new possibilities and new narratives.
We would like to thank the panellists for their presentations and for their patient participation in the preparation of this document, moderator Elizabeth McIsaac for her skillful facilitation of the discussion, and our partners, CCNC, CASSA and HDC, for bringing the forum to fruition. We welcome you to the first document of the Community Perspectives Series, and look forward to many more.
