The United Way of Perth Huron has announced funding to the Avon Maitland School Board's Centre for Employment and Learning to help support newcomers.
The increased funding will allow increased hours for English as a second language instructors throughout Perth and Huron counties until the end of March.
Executive Director Ryan Erb says more support is needed as refugees arrive in the area, along with an increase in the number of newcomers in general to the region.
The funding will help provide needs assessment and referral services in Stratford, Listowel, Wingham, Goderich, Clinton, Exeter and Seaforth.
Erb says the centres are already one of the first places newcomers reach out to, so it makes sense to provide referral services.
“We are one of the first places newcomers call because we offer language training. For many years, our ESL Instructors have been helping newcomers of all ages by referring them to services, but they’ve never had enough time to do it as well as they would like. This funding makes that possible.” says Erin Jones, CEL site coordinator, Stratford.
Nelson Couto, VP of Resource Development, explains, “This is a great example of United Way responding to an immediate need. Being flexible to deal with timely concerns is one of the strengths of our organization.”
