Just landed? Resources available.

I live in Calgary, Alberta and there are numerous resources available for new immigrants. This post is about some of the resources that can help ease your first few months and some that will help you with other stuff down the line.

•          Food Bank: there is a main food bank within the city. Food can be quite expensive and you don’t want to spend most of your money on food, especially if you have kids. A visit to the food bank once a month will go a long way to alleviate the stress of spending a lot of money on food. You can get cereals, baby food, rice, pasta, canned food, canned tomatoes, e.t.c. from the food bank. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, no one needs to know you went to the food bank, you are helping yourself and your family and that’s all that matters. If you land in Calgary, below is the address and contact details.

Call the Food Bank for hamper request. Hamper request hot line – (403) 253-2055. After requesting for a hamper, you can pick up at their address: 5000 11 St SE, Calgary, AB T2H 2Y5.

•  Centre for Newcomers:  This center provides various resources to immigrants. There are free job and career trainings, English classes for immigrants who don’t speak English or can just manage to get by with a few words, free tax filing available during tax season e.t.c.

Check their website: http://centrefornewcomers.ca

•       Calgary Catholic Immigrant Society: The CCIS is a fantastic place for newcomers to be. They have quite a lot of career training and integration resources. If you need advice for daily living, someone is readily available to help you out, no matter what the issue is. Their mission statement is “In partnership, we empower immigrants and refugees to successfully resettle and integrate”. Need me to say anything more?

 Website: https://www.ccisab.ca

I’ll continue this in other posts. If you land in any city in Canada, there are all forms of resources available for free. Find them and make your transition easy for yourself and your family.

It’s Spring!!!!!!!!

Yesterday was officially the first day of Spring, which means rain, planting, green grass and flowers. I’m so excited because I am tired of the snow. 

This winter has been really harsh, we’ve had between 15cm to 20cm of snow at various times. Driving to and back from work sometimes was too stressful, you have to drive the car at about 30km/hr on a 100km/hr road.😠😠😠😠

I’m equally tired of wearing boots, dressing up in layers, wearing a heavy jacket and checking the weather before going out everyday.😰

So, welcome Spring, it’s nice to have you here. I love the smell of rain and the beautiful flowers that sprout at this time of the year.🌻💃💃💃

Welcome Spring, the season that heralds Summer. Welcome Spring, Welcome Freshness.

Parles-vouz Francais?

I first nurtured the idea of learning French in my 3^rd year in the Higher Institution. I found a French book at home and dived in. Like a dehydrated person in the desert, I started drinking this fresh water of a new language, alas, that didn’t end so well, because I learnt nothing really, I could write down the words, but I didn’t know how to pronounce them. 

Fast forward to 2005, my younger sister and hubby’s younger brother had just completed their degrees and were waiting for their mandatory National service. They both came up with the idea to learn French. They enrolled at the foremost French learning centre in Port Harcourt (not mentioning their name - no free ad 😊). I’m sure they could manage a few common sentences in French by the end of their classes after paying a huge sum of money. (I hope they don’t read this post 😊.)

In 2015, I learnt of the French immersion program in Canada for elementary and high schools, where teachers teach the students only in French, except when teaching English language. As native English speakers, hubby and I decided to test the kids because English and French are the official languages in Canada.

The French immersion program is in 2 stages – early and late immersion programs. For the early immersion, you can get in at only kindergarten or G
rade 1, after that, the only option available is the late immersion in Grade 7. Older son was in grade 4 at the time, so he couldn’t get into the programme. So, we enrolled our younger son who was in Grade 1.

It was tough for him in the first few months, he will come back from school and say “I wish I was still in my old school”. We encouraged him and he kept at it. He is currently in Grade 3 and doing really well. Older son entered Grade 7 this year and he entered the late immersion program.

I am really glad to say I have two French speakers in my house. They speak French to each other all the time now and argue about French words and sentences. The one thing I find annoying is when they are up to some mischief and they don’t want me to know ☹.

There are a few Spanish, German and Chinese immersion programs as well. It is a good thing because these schools are public schools, so you don’t have to sell a leg and an arm to pay for learning a second language. This is one of the numerous benefits of living in Canada.

Parles-vouz Francais? Non.