Refugees despondent English classes cancelled without notice

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/09/2017 (2958 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Saba Temnewo hit the ground running when she arrived in Canada with her two kids this summer. The children were registered for school in the fall and the ambitious newcomer who aspires to become a nurse was registered for Enhanced English Skills for Employment starting Monday. On the day her class was to begin, she learned her registration was cancelled due to a lack of federal funding.

“I feel sorry,” said the Eritrean refugee who was sponsored by Hospitality House Refugee Ministry. “Language is the root of everything.” She knows enough English to look for a survival job but not enough to qualify for provincial funding to attend classes to work as a health care aide — the first step in her goal of becoming a nurse and a good provider for her children, ages 10 and 13.

She received an email Monday from the employment program saying she and many others will be “very disappointed” to know their registration was rejected.

“The funding we had expected from the federal government was greatly reduced,” said the email from the program’s executive director, Louise Giesbrecht. “Therefore, we are able to offer only one class in the morning and one class in the afternoon. Considering that in the past we have offered 5 classes in the morning, 5 classes in the afternoon and 5 classes in the evening, we are devastated by this. We know how important these classes are for each of you.”

The bad news that newcomers like Temnewo are getting now is fallout from federal funding cuts announced this spring, Giesbrecht said Tuesday. That’s when Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said it was shifting funds toward very basic English as an Additional Language classes for those at a Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) between One and Four from more advanced classes for those trying to achieve a CLB between Five and Eight. The Enhanced English Skills for Employment classes elevate a newcomer’s prospects, said Temnewo.

“I need that to improve my English and knowledge of the system in Canada,” said Temnewo. She attended high school in Eritrea and worked in hotels and the hospitality industry before arriving July from Khartoum, the capital of Sudan where she and her kids lived as refugees.

For now, she’s looking for a “primary job” to get some Canadian work experience and a way to get her language skills to a Canadian Language Benchmark level of Seven or Eight that’s required to receive provincially-funded training. Without it, she will have to come up with $8,000 to pay a private career college that’s willing to train her with less than a CLB 7 or 8. If Temnewo finds a minimum-wage survival job and has two kids to support, $8,000 is out of reach.

“I don’t know if the federal government knows the damage they’re doing,” said Karin Gordon, director of settlement for Hospitality House Refugee Ministry, which sponsored Temnewo and her family.

“You’re going to have a whole pile of people living on survival jobs or welfare who end up costing the public purse,” she said. “You’re keeping these people at a low socioeconomic level forever – especially if they can’t finish high school.”

In her email to students who had been registered for fall classes, Giesbrecht, the executive director of Enhanced English Skills for Employment, said they would continue to work with both levels of government to try to address the issues and, they hope, offer them a space soon. She also suggested they contact their local Member of Parliament or Member of the Legislative Assembly to let them know how the funding reductions impact them.

When asked, IRCC was not prepared to comment Tuesday.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca