Raising awareness of the benefits of skilled immigrants in the local economy has been a focus of TRIEC’s work since the beginning.
TRIEC’s Immigrant Success (IS) Awards recognize employer leadership and innovation in recruiting and retaining skilled immigrants in the Toronto Region. Now in its 6th year, the awards have recognized 25 employers and individuals, highlighting effective practices in immigrant integration.
TRIEC has also launched two awareness campaigns, one aimed at the public and another at employers. In the first we used humour to depict the absurdity of underemployment of immigrants, illustrated in video when a woman from financial services must work as a cleaning lady, an internationally trained engineer applies for a fast food job and an IT professional working as a courier must stand by as a customer loses their data to a problem that he could have fixed. We’ve included two print ads used in the campaign. The video commercials can be made available for non-commercial, presentation purposes. Contact us to learn more.
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To get through to employers we flipped the idea of Canadian experience on its head when a Canadian-born citizen couldn’t land a job in India because he had only Canadian education and experience. The accompanying print ad showcased the talent of immigrants as a reason why businesses would be doing themselves a favour to hire skilled immigrants.
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Telling stories of immigrant success through the media and to relevant stakeholders is an important part of our work. You can read such stories in the news and check out some of the presentations we’ve made through SlideShare.
A few years ago, TRIEC also created 20 Journeys, a traveling photography exhibit, to tell the story of skilled immigrants who have contributed to the vibrancy of the Toronto Region labour market. The exhibit details their immigrant experiences, their journeys to achieving success, and the programs and employers that have shared in their milestones. While we are no longer exhibiting 20 Journeys, you can see the powerful portraits and read the subjects’ stories here.
