TRIEC honours mentors and mentees

Canadian Immigrant
November 23, 2009

Miho Takaya

Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC)’s fourth annual Mentoring Partnership Awards honoured five immigrants, including two foreign trained immigrants, on Nov. 17.

The two skilled immigrants were recognized for successfully establishing in their professions, while the three others were honoured for offering valuable mentoring that helped many such immigrant professionals settle in.

Jamaican born Karen Brown had more than a decade of experience in the financial services industry when she arrived in October last year. She started job search immediately, but also found a mentor, TD bank’s Jasmine Tehara through ACCES Employment Services in Brampton, to help her learn the Canadian work environment.

Following her mentor’s guidance, Brown also conducted information interviews, job shadowing and volunteering to gain Canadian experience.

Brown recalls that the job shadowing opportunity led her to being hired in July as a senior business analyst at TD Bank Financial Group. “When you are looking for a job, you always have to be positive and open-minded. Never give up. You have to keep searching for your future job.”

The other mentee recognized at the event was Kenneth Chiguvare, a business analyst from Zimbabwe who moved to Canada in January this year. He also quickly found a mentor to help him learn the ways of Canadian work world. His mentor Alan Keith is the vice president of 20/20 Skills Assessment.

“Kenneth had to overcome his barrier of the lack of Canadian experience,” says Keith, who is a mentor with settlement agency JVS Toronto. “So what I was helping with was focusing on his skills, by making him understand how he needs to portrait himself that he is a highly skilled profession and how he distinguish himself with other candidates.”

Kenneth not only overcame that barrier but mastered the ‘cold call’ method of finding a job by constantly consulting with his mentor. Chiguvare was hired as a customer service analyst at Wal-Mart. “He (Keith) was like my father, best advisor I’ve ever had. I couldn’t get this award if my mentor weren’t Keith. I really appreciate the time he spent for me,” he says with gratitude.

Mentor Michael Schafler, a partner at Fraser Milner Casgrain, a Toronto practice firm, received the Special Achievement award. Other two mentors, John Phelan, director of HR Services at the Regional Municipality of Halton, and Carrie Samuels, IT and engineering consultant, were honoured with the Mentor of the Year award.

TRIEC’s Mentoring Partnership program has supported skilled immigrants to build their professional careers through a four-month period of one-on-one occupation specific mentoring. To more information on the Mentoring Partnership program, visit thementoringpartnership.com.

Reference: Canadian Immigrant