Oct. 4 marked the second year of the “Ottawa Welcome Event for International Students” at Ottawa City Hall. The event aims to make students feel like part of the community, and educate them on different opportunities within the city, according to a city release.
The event included bilingual workshops, city and community resources, networking opportunities, and games.
Stella Garcia, the volunteer coordinator for the event, said many of the international students were masters or PhD students.
“It’s been fabulous. At one point during our training, we had twenty-five students in the room and who spoke twenty-six languages,” Garcia said.
The event included information booths from local businesses and service centres, including the Ottawa Public Library, the Royal Bank of Canada, and PhoneBox.
Students were welcomed by Ottawa mayor Jim Watson, followed by workshops and outdoor entertainment and games. Workshops included information on worker rights in Ontario, information about working visas, budgeting advice, and tips from other international students.
First-year University of Ottawa (U of O) masters student Vinay Singh said he felt the event really helped students get to know the area and feel more comfortable in the city.
“This helps address the concerns of a diverse group of people by having so many different tables here and creates community,” Singh said. “We are very happy to also see the mayor of Ottawa here. He is very down to earth and nice.”
According to Garcia, last year the event was targeted towards fourth-year students and masters students only. This year, she said, the city reached out to undergraduate international students from local post-secondary schools as well.
“This event is a little bit different than last year, focusing on welcoming new students,” she said. “We found that students wanted information about work, so this year we made sure to incorporate that by adding more local businesses.”
Himanshu Trivedi, a first-year U of O masters student, said the event was “great, because it [had] so much information about living and working in Ottawa, as well as rules and regulations that I did not know. . . there are great services here to help adapt the culture.”
Garcia said the event was funded by the government of Ontario as part of their immigration efforts in Canada, and the city plans to continue this event in future.
“It all started in 2014, when we submitted a proposal to the government of Ontario. . . the province has an immigration strategy and one of the areas they focus on is international students. They want to make sure they are recruiting students but also doing a good job of integrating them,” she said.
