CCIS ‘Canada Connects’ program celebrating 40 years of helping newcomers

The Calgary Catholic Immigration Society's 'Canada Connects' program has helped government-assisted refugees acclimatize to Calgary for 40 years.

The Calgary Catholic Immigration Society (CCIS) has been helping government assisted refugees acclimate to a Western Canadian lifestyle for 40 years through it’s Canada Connects volunteer lead program.

Beata Lutaba has managed the program for 30 of those years.

As a Polish imigrant herself, she knows first hand how challenging a move can be to a new country.

“The main goal of this program is to offer support to government assisted refugees who come to Canada, that’s really the essence of what our efforts go towards and you can’t integrate on your own,” she said.

”We help them know how to shop or understand how all the different systems, like educational system, medical system, how it all works, integrating into the culture.”

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Lutaba says while the program has undergone a series of name changes since its inception in 1985, it’s helped thousands of newcomers in Calgary.

“Over 40 years we’ve helped 16,000 newcomers and engaged around 4,000 volunteers,” she said. “So if you count, that’s like a little city.”

Wilton Otto came to Calgary with his wife and young child from south Sudan in March 2024 after a stopover in Hong Kong.

Otto says he was good learning about navigating Calgary on his own, but was to build a connection with someone from here.

“Our parents are not here, we are young couple so (our volunteer) became like a mother to us, she comes home, sits with our kid,” he said.

“It’s just that human connection that mattered and she became a very good family friend of ours, we always invite her home when we have family gatherings.”

Otto says now he is paying it forward by helping other refugees learn about life in Calgary.

“It is really inspired me a lot because I feel like okay, they have done this to me, what else can I do to help others,” he said.

For 20 years, Joanne and Jesse Gilmore have worked with refugee families to help them learn Canadian customs but also how to shop, go to the hospital, ride transit and cook.

Joanne says they start things off by teaching their newcomer clients how to make a pizza from scratch, because they’ll likely encounter it in the city at some point.

“They need to see what goes in it and it’s the kind of project where everybody can get involved,” she said.

“Somebody can knead the dough, somebody can chop the green peppers and it’s a chance to introduce vegetables that they may not have seen and a lot of them haven’t used ovens before so it’s an introduction on and how to how to use an oven, how to set the timer, how to turn on the light, how to turn it off.”

Joanne says she and Jesse regularly hear from past clients who still keep in touch asking questions about something or just wanting to invite them for dinner. She’s proud of the work the couple has done and also enjoyed meeting new people from different countries.

“It lets us travel without traveling and we’ve had so many delicious meals,” she said.

“We’ve had some really clinkers but you know, it’s really fun.”

Learn more about the program online.