Settlement help on offer to Cape Bretton-bound immigrants

Immigrants who settle in Cape Bretton, Nova Scotia, will soon have a dedicated person to turn to for assistance in settling in the region.

Earlier this week, the province’s Premier, Lena Diab, revealed that the Office of Immigration has earmarked CDN$175,000 to help with immigrant settlement this financial year, and stated that most of the money will go towards hiring two front-line caseworkers to work out of the New Dawn Centre for Social Innovation in Sydney.

The Minister said that the funding is a response to the work of Cape Breton University’s task force on immigration.

“One of their recommendations was to increase, enhance the core settlement services on Cape Breton,” she said. “They wanted to have funding for more people to work directly with newcomers.”

Diab explained that more needs to be done to make newcomers aware of all the opportunities living in Cape Breton, and Nova Scotia as a whole, affords them.

“The big issue that I have seen as I travelled Nova Scotia is that groups, individuals, organisations, so on, are not necessarily in tune, or aware of all the great things that are available in their community. So that’s part of what this [funding] will be doing.”

Article by David Fuller