Website created by Mithum & Beshmi Kularatne
Last updated January 2008
About Us:
IWS was officially formed in 1985 to address the needs & issues of immigrant, refugee and visible minority women, which remained outside the perimeters of the mainstream service organizations. The provincial organization, Immigrant Women of Saskatchewan (now called Immigrant, Refugee, and Visible Minority Women of Saskatchewan) was the first organization in Saskatchewan, to undertake an extensive study to identify various needs of immigrant women, including that of employment. Thus, an important part of the IWS mandate is to undertake projects and activities to meet the special needs of the target groups.
Our organization was created by a group of women from around the world, displaced from their home countries, to address the concerns and issues of immigrant and refugee women in Saskatoon as we struggle to integrate into the Canadian society, and promote a better understanding of our needs and aspirations within the mainstream society. We continue to do this and more. But, new complex issues and challenges in the lives of immigrants and refugees keep emerging. We simply cannot stay silent. Natural disasters and man-made atrocities continue around the world robbing people of their both personal possessions and personal dignity. We observe the effects of these calamities in our midst, as so many displaced people try to make Canada and Saskatoon their new home. New problems and issues result out of these displacements, forcing us to reexamine our values and our roles in the aid of the affected people, especially of that women and children. As an organization, we have also witnessed the tremendous capacity of these people to survive the odds and rebuild their lives. By sharing their stories and their experience, we feel empowered to work in this rebuilding process.
For the last 20 years, IWS has been providing support and services to immigrant women and their families. While we have grown as a group with a strong voice in the community, our resources have shrunk. The lack of regular and continuous funding poses a serious challenge to our ability to provide the needed service. At the same time, there now is recognition of new realities among all – that Canada and Saskatchewan need more immigrants and to achieve this, there is an urgency to look at the larger issue of immigrant settlement and integration processes and services. We want to play a part in resolving all the external and internal issues in order to better the lives of all immigrants and refugees and the community at large. As one way to signal our commitment to this broader agenda, we are revising our organization's bylaws, and changing our name. We wish to include the larger community as our partners and be more inclusive and effective in responding to the changing needs of immigrants and refugees.
The recognition of the above concerns and values led the Immigrant Women of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon Chapter to adopt the new name - International Women of Saskatoon (IWS) - in November 2005, in order to make it more inclusive and broad based. It is a community based non- profit organization managed by a volunteer board of directors elected by the general membership at the annual general meeting every year. Our membership is now open to all women who believe in the philosophy and the mandate of IWS.
International Women of Saskatoon's initiatives to remedy the employment barriers of immigrants arise out of its own lived experience, as so many of its members and their families struggle to make an entry into the Canadian job market. Since 1987, IWS has successfully offered a number of employment preparation programs. Changing realties of the present time have necessitated IWS to take more proactive measures in order to assist immigrant women and their families to cope with the changing scenarios of the Canadian job market. In particular, as the overall state of the economy and the structure of the employment market have undergone significant changes, it became evident that special measures would be necessary not only to facilitate the first-time entry into the Canadian workplace by all immigrant women, but also to develop supplementary capacity to maintain continuing employability by balancing workplace and family support challenges. Women entering the job market need special support to balance the demands of work with the family life .
About Us