The Eastern Region Immigration Partnership (ERIP) is a multi-sector partnership designed to improve the integration of immigrants and newcomers in Steinbach and Manitoba's eastern region and to strengthen the city's ability to better address the needs of newcomers.
ERIP is essentially a Local Immigration Partnership (LIP), a community-based partnership that:
Foster a systemataic approach to engage service provider organizations and institutions to integrate newcomers and immigrants.
Support community-level research and strategic planning.
Improve coordination of effective services to create a more accessible system that facilitates newcomer and immigrant settlement and integration.
ERIP is organized as shown by the chart below:
The Eastern Region Immigration Partnership Council (ERIP Council) is the strategic planning body composed of stakeholders who represent employers, businesses, labour, education, social services, various levels of government, faith-based groups, ethno-cultural associations, community leaders and community organizations that serve newcomers.
The ERIP Council will ensure that multiple stakeholders participate in planning and coordinating services to enchance delivery of integration services to all immigrants.
The ERIP Council will develop and implement strategies to facilitate increased access to all services, and assist non-settlement services providers and the community to develop a greater understanding of immigrants' needs and avaliable services in order to foster more welcoming and inclusive communities.
The members of ERIP Council represent the following organizations:
The ERIP Immigrant Advistory Table (IAT) will provied first-hand experience and insight on living as an immigrant in Steinbach and the Eastman region. This expertise will be used to inform and support strategic and action planning by th ERIP Council, working groups, and ERIP staff.
The ERIP IAT will be composed of approximately 10 members per year, as determined through a selection process based on ethnocultural representation, backgrounds, and experiences.
Working Group members will act as subject matter experts that contribute to the design and implemenation of activities in support of the priorities of the strategic plan, as defined by the ERIP Council, support community engagement and outreach, and identify activities that support the achievement of identified outcomes.
The ERIP Council will identify organizational representatives to invite the working group in addition to a public call for members.
ERIP currently has Working Groups for the following:
Employment
K-12
Education
Adult
Learning
Health
Housing
Welcoming
Events
Funded by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), ERIP is a community-based coalition that is formed by many people engaged in partnership. Its purpose is to engage all municipalities that are part of Eastern Manitoba in the Welcoming Communities initative. If you live/work in Eastern Manitoba region and would like to get involved with ERIP, email us at sviatoslav@eastmanis.com. ERIP would love to hear from you.
Sviatoslav was born and raised in Ukraine. He moved to Canada with his wife and children in November, 2022. In Ukraine, he graduated from the National Tax University of Ukraine with a master of law degree. Sviatoslav has worked as a lawyer in government and public positions for over 12 years. He has always been interested in community development and building strong bonds in society with equal rights for all people in the community. In his free time, Sviatoslav enjoys spending time with his family and traveling.
Education is an essential piece of every person's life. This can be very challenging if someone comes from a different country to Canada.
ERIP and its education partners such as, school divisions, academic institutions and other organizations, work collaboratevely to enhance the support for newcomers in the Canadian education system.
Together with stakeholders, we are committed to identifying the gaps and challenges and raising awareness at the local level. We are currently developing an action plan based on the recommendations from the report taken from consulatations done with newcomer parents and youth.
School divisions are partnering with us to engage with our communities' feedback.
To increase awareness of newcomer issues around schools, education, employees and throughout the community.
Develop improved understsanding and acceptance of newcomers in schools.
Develop and support school community understanding and acceptance (cultural diversity) of newcomers in schools.
Enhance of develop supportive initiatives regarding education and employment.
Finding work is the main priority for many newcomers. Getting a job that matches their qualifications and interests is one of the biggest challenges of settling in Canada. For many people, the first job in Canada may not be the most satisfying. It may take time to build someone's qualifications and gain Canadian experience before finding the job they really want.
Ensuring Canada as the destination of choice for internationl talent - workers, entreprenuers, and students - is key to our national success. It's important to understand the economic advantages of immigrants and their contributions to culture and communities.
Once newcomers arrive in Canada, there needs to be better recognition of credentials and bridging to their professions or trades. Employment is critical not just to the economic well-being of newcomers but also to their sense of belonging and mental health. We need to focus on challenging current barriers to entry for professionals and people in the skilled trades.
Based on this, ERIP has been constantly creating opportunities for local businesses to partner to enchance strategies to attract, manage and retain such a diverse workforce.
In November 2021, we interviewed 35 companies in the region, as well as newcomer wrokers to find the biggest challenges both groups face when it comes to employment. To access the results of this study, you can download the full report below.
To ensure businesses and industry in the Eastman region fully realize the benefits of immigration, including recognition of immigrant skills and expertise, and reciprocally, to ensure newcomers are economically integrated, self-sufficent, well-adjusted with strong self-esteem.
Develop a method to increase service providers' knowledge regarding avaliable resources in the community to support newcomers' employement.
Support initatives for newcomer preparation for successful Canadian work experience.
Support initiatives to increase immigrant access to emplooyment in the communities to support local labour market.
Under ERIP's Strategic Plan, Social Services was subdivided into 3 main areas: Health, Housing, and Welcoming Events.
Southern Health-Sante Sud, is the regional health authority for Eastern manitoba. It is represented on ERIP's council and is actively engaged with our initatives regarding health resources, health equity, awareness increase, service gaps, mental health, healthy living initatives, and more.
ERIP recognizes the importance of housing affordability for newcomer individuals and families. In collaboration with stakeholders and government levels, ERIP is committed to promoting housing solutions to enhance community-newcomer integration. Please access the study we finalized in November 2022 about housing challenges in the Eastman region here.
The Welcoming and Inclusive Communities intitative was developed by IRCC (Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada) to support large and small centres across the country in developing ways to create a more open and friendly environment for newcomer residents. In rural communities, where ERIP is established, municipalities, town councils, and community dvelopment corporations have a great responsibility in making the settlement process a better experience for newcomers. ERIP has been developing partnerships across the Eastman region and is ready to support local immigration strategies in collaboration with the provicinal government.
To promote welcoming and inclusive services for newcomers and to empower them to become active participants in our communities.
Engage with stakeholders to identify and increase awareness about housing issues for newcomers.
Collaborate with communities and municipalities to develop community-based welcoming events and activities.
Collaborate with the Regional Health Authority to increase awareness of health services avaliable for newcomers, and to increase health care providers' knowledge of newcomer health challenges and barriers to accessing health care.
To know more about how you can get involved, there are many opportunities to support the work that we do.
Please fill out the section below or send us an email. Thank you!
Phone: 1-(431)-366-0395
Address: D4-284 Reimer Avenue
Steinbach, Manitoba R5G 0R5
Email: sviatoslav@eastmanis.com
