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Humboldt Regional Newcomer Centre nominated for immigration award

HUMBOLDT — The Humboldt Regional Newcomer Centre (HRNC) has been nominated for the national Settlement Agency Award.
Humboldt Regional Newcomers Centre web

HUMBOLDT — The Humboldt Regional Newcomer Centre (HRNC) has been nominated for the national Settlement Agency Award.

The Settlement Agency Award serves to celebrate the contribution, dedication and hard work provided by an agency to help immigrants succeed in Canada.

This is the HRNC’s second year of being anonymously nominated.

“We’re the only settlement agency in our region, and we serve some very small communities and work with employees in some quite remote settings,” said Janine Hart, HRNC’s executive director. “For us to be out in rural Saskatchewan competing against some big leagues in Ontario and B.C. and other provinces is more than enough for us. It’s not about the winning, it’s just about getting as far as this.”

The HRNC is a walk-in, free resource centre where our staff will help newcomers settle and integrate into their community. The agency serves a one stop gateway for assistance with immigration concerns and referrals to necessary agencies to help meet the needs of newcomers.

There are a total of 25 organizations competing.

“We’ve come a long way in the 10 years that we’ve become an organization and it’s just really rewarding that either an employer or an individual has taken the time to do this, and it’s saying that we’re doing a good job with everything we’ve done.”

Hart said this has been especially true with COVID-19 causing particular challenges.

Some of these challenges included high trauma work, assisting families with contacting the CERB (Canada Emergency Response Benefit), as well as helping families struggling to connect with their teachers for online learning.

“We’ve been doing a lot of crisis work,” she said. “Generally we would refer them to other agencies but those other agencies, unfortunately, throughout COVID shut down period were unable to provide those in-person essential services, which we were able to do.”

To be nominated, Hart said that it means to her that someone taken the time to express that the centre have played a big role on their journey to be integrated into the community.

“So for us, that’s reward enough,” she said.

“I just want to say thank you to whoever nominated us throughout, and just to support each other as we move through this new time.”

Voting ends on Aug. 7. People can cast their votes by going to canadianimmigrant.ca/canadas-top-25-immigrants/settlement-agency-award.