Moving to a new country is anything but easy.
For newcomers arriving in Toronto, it often means navigating unfamiliar systems, learning a new language, building new support networks and finding housing in a tough market.
While settlement agencies provide many good services, there’s a high demand and many gaps. That’s where Anne Le Quang stepped in. Coming from a refugee family of her own, she brings her lived-experience to her care-focused work. She started as a volunteer and now serves as interim executive director at Canadian Connections, a local charitable organization offering support to refugees.
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For Quang, there’s fulfillment in creating connections with the newcomers. From helping them finding jobs, homes and creating community networks, she works to make the transition to Canadian life a little less isolating.
In this conversation, she reflects on the challenges newcomers face and what Torontonians can do to support.
(Disclosure: co-author Rukhshana Ahmadi briefly volunteered with the organization in 2021, and hadn’t met or worked with Quang before this interview.)
Can you tell us a little bit about your journey into community work and what led you to become involved with Canadian Connections?
My background is in social work, so I’ve always been interested in community work. Coming from a refugee family myself, it only made sense.
My interest started with the Syrian crisis and I just wanted to learn more about what I can do. I ended up sponsoring or becoming part of the sponsor team for several Syrian families. In fact, these are families that I still see on a regular basis. We’ve become families ourselves, right?
And then, the Afghan crisis started to take place. There was a group of people who already knew each other from helping the Syrians and they got together and said, “what can we do to help the Afghans?” A whole bunch of us said, “you can count on us.” And that’s how I became interested and it’s just the connections and the relationships that I built with everyone and that has kept us going for the last four-plus years.
Was there a particular moment or experience that made you realize that newcomers needed more support than what was currently available to them?
Absolutely. It’s basically when we went to the hotels and we saw there were settlement agencies there. And believe me, they do great work. We love them and we partner with them, but when we went there, we realized that they weren’t able to address some of the needs the refugees had.
A lot of people came to Canada with just the clothes on their back or just what they were able to carry in their hands, right? So, they needed socks, shoes — especially during the winter, when a lot of them arrived — and settlement agencies weren’t able to keep up. A lot of people felt that they weren’t being heard and it was frustrating for them.
Because we were a group of volunteers, we were able to recruit more volunteers, including people who were able to speak the language. They were able to come in and build trust a lot quicker with the people in the hotels.
We knew right away that there was a role for us to play. Because we were initially a group of volunteers, it was easier for us to navigate and do things quickly, whereas the other agencies have protocols and policies.
So what we provide is that first point of contact. We can lay out for them the steps that they need in order to do what they need to do. We can do that in their language so that they’re comfortable. Once people trust you, they start to open up to you and they tell you what it is that they need. And then from there, we can build a plan that’s suitable for them.
What has working closely with newcomers taught you about resilience, belonging and community?
I love having conversations with our clients. I loved being able to speak with our newcomer families because they have so much to share.
They have such rich histories and stories and they’re just the most delightful people. You don’t know how many times I’ve been invited to someone’s home to share a meal and to have a drink.
They come with all of these experiences and they just want an opportunity to be able to settle peacefully in a new country and then start to rebuild their lives, and then to be able to contribute to Canadian society.
I would also like to highlight this year some of those success stories. People who came here in 2021, 2022, where are they now? What are they doing? How can they inspire people who are just new to this journey as well?
We’re working on getting these stories told because I think it’s important, especially right now with the political climate and how some people don’t have a positive feeling about immigration and refugees.
For people who want to support newcomers or start community-based initiatives of their own, what advice would you offer?
Talk to us. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done and we can help guide you and we can also guide you to the people in your own community that are already doing such good work.
We know who can give you a free space that you can use to run a program. We know who can give you refreshments. So have a conversation with us and we’re very open to that.
You know, just send us an email or give us a call and come into our office. Talk with us and we can find out together what it is that you wanna do and then, we can guide you to the people already doing that work or, you know, people who would also like to do that work.
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