Submitted by Steven Baileys, Community Development Coordinator 

Diversity Training for Seaspan Shipyards

Congratulations to the staff at Seaspan Victoria Shipyards for recently completing a half-day workshop on diversity and cross cultural understanding. Seaspan administrators and staff from the trades departments learned about cross cultural communication tools, how to recognize and understand the dimensions of all cultures, and delved into the impact of personal biases. Seaspan employs more than 800 staff and recently became a member of the Community Partnership Network (CPN) – a network of more than 190 local businesses and organizations committed to promoting diversity in our community.

Lila Lund, Human Resources Administrator at Seaspan, spoke about the importance of the training: “At Seaspan we believe that in order to create a diverse and inclusive workforce we need to educate our employees on the importance and value that it brings!  The training we received last month from the Inter-Cultural Association was a pilot class and was so well received we have decided to open it up to more employees throughout the fall. Through training and education we can start breaking down barriers and get people motivated to foster an inclusive workplace.”

By working with ICA to develop diversity training for their staff, Seaspan has demonstrated their commitment to ensuring the workplace is welcoming and inclusive. Additional workshops will be delivered to Seaspan staff in the fall of 2015. Thanks to Lila Lund and Sandra Hogan (Human Resources Administrators) for organizing the training. Well done Seaspan!

For more information about Seaspan: www.seaspan.com

For more information about diversity training for your organization or to join the CPN: www.communitypartnershipnetwork.ca

Greater Victoria Local Immigration Partnership

In 2014, the Inter-Cultural Assocation of Greater Victoria (ICA) received funding from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) to lead the Local Immigration Partnership (LIP) initiative. The goal of the LIP initiative is to connect key organizations and businesses, immigrants and community stakeholders to create an immigration settlement strategy for the Greater Victoria region.

Over the past few months the LIP has formalized a research partnership with the University of Victoria’s Institute for Studies and Innovation in Community University Engagement (ISICUE). ISICUE will assist with research and documenting best practices to promote the successful integration of immigrants. In the spring of 2015 the initial LIP Advisory Council was formed with representatives from: Vancity, Greater Victoria Public Library, Saanich Police, Westshore Parks and Recreation, Here! Magazine, among others.  Stakeholders in the region will continue to be invited to join the LIP Advisory Council and the sector-based working tables. Newcomers will guide and inform the initiative through an Immigrant Advisory Table. Look for the LIPs webpage to be developed in the late summer.

If you would like to be involved or learn more about the LIP initiative, please contact Steven Baileys of ICA at: localimmigrationpartnership@icavictoria.org.