WES Blog

WES Global Talent Bridge’s Skilled Immigrant Integration Program (SIIP) has been building momentum over the past four years, growing its dynamic network of communities working to promote the workforce inclusion of immigrants and refugees across the nation. Now, the program will deepen its impact through the inaugural SIIP Demonstration opportunity. The opportunity will support selected […]

Prior to 2021, if you studied in Pakistan and wanted to pursue immigration, career, or higher education goals in the United States or Canada, then you might have encountered difficulties with credential recognition.  WES wanted to help more Pakistan-educated individuals achieve success in Canada and the U.S.  And we’re proud to say that our efforts […]

As Canada’s labour market adapts to challenges associated with COVID-19 and to changes in public health measures, there is a spike in demand for talent, especially in sectors that were already facing worker shortages.  According to Statistics Canada, 130,000 people left the workforce after the onset of the pandemic and are no longer seeking employment. While there were 731,900 jobs in the second quarter of 2021 that needed to be filled, some experts project that vacancies will continue […]

This September, the IMPRINT Coalition launched the #UntappedTalent: Inclusive Economies for All campaign to spotlight the need for policy reforms that increase the economic mobility of immigrants and refugees in the United States. The campaign launched last month with the support of 15 partner organizations and has since grown to include 40 additional organizations who […]

The WES Mariam Assefa Fund is excited to announce its partnership with the Tamarack Institute to launch a participatory grantmaking project in the Peel region of Ontario, Canada. Tamarack will engage community stakeholders to identify the needs of immigrants and refugees in the Peel community, to define funding priorities and processes for this project, and […]

Two decades ago, Nevada was home to just over 100,000 immigrants and refugees, or 8.7 percent of its total population of 1.2 million. Yet as of 2020, the number of people in the state has mushroomed to 3.1 million, with immigration driving much of the growth. Nevada’s population is now 20 percent foreign-born, and the […]

As President of the Neighborhood Development Center (NDC), Renay Dossman oversees efforts to support sustainable community development and equitable economic opportunity for entrepreneurs and small business owners—35 percent of whom are immigrants and refugees—in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. “Working at NDC is a mix of everything I’ve loved doing in my career—I get to […]

Over the last month, tens of thousands of Afghans have been forced to flee their homes and been hastily resettled in new countries. Communities across the U.S. are welcoming Afghan refugees and helping them get settled. To best support refugees as they look to establish new lives and pursue new opportunities in the U.S., it […]

By Monica Munn, Managing Director of Philanthropy at World Education Services (WES) Two years ago, the WES Mariam Assefa Fund made its first grants to organizations working to build more inclusive economies for immigrants and refugees. We were excited to begin our journey as a philanthropic funder and were energized by our new grantee partners, […]

Members of the National Council for Workforce Education (NCWE) will convene on October 6-7, with the timely mission of mobilizing community colleges to activate a workforce that supports the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the nation’s full economic recovery. Rallying around NCWE’s core value of “workforce education for all,” conference session […]

Last week, bipartisan legislation passed the U.S. House of Representatives, putting the United States a step closer to envisioning a workforce that works for all. First introduced in August 2020 as a stand-alone bill with bipartisan support, the Improving Opportunities for New Americans Act was reintroduced in June 2021 with six bipartisan co-sponsors. The legislation […]

When Ali Khalaf left Iraq in 2018, he had been using his master’s degree in international business to teach management, e-commerce, industrial organization, and commercial law at the University of Basrah. When he arrived in Canada, he was eager to continue doing what he loves—teaching—and planned to earn his doctoral degree. But things didn’t go […]

“The work of organizing as working-class, racialized migrants is very personal,” says Syed Hussan, executive director of Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC) in Ontario, a grantee partner of the WES Mariam Assefa Fund. An immigrant himself, Hussan began working as an organizer with MWAC in 2008. “This is collective work—it is not just about […]

World Education Services (WES) believes in the power of storytelling and shared resources. In 2019, we reached out to immigrants across North America. We asked about their reasons for leaving home, their challenges along the way, and the advice they would like to share with other newcomers. In this new blog series, we are now […]

The 2020 census revealed a trend that city leaders in Buffalo, New York, had not seen in seven decades: growth. As of last year, the city was home to 278,349 residents, a 6.5 percent increase since 2010. The growth, the first recorded in Buffalo since the 1950 census, is the result of a dedicated effort […]

Youth are the leaders and changemakers of tomorrow, the foundation of any country’s future workforce. Yet Canada’s youth—especially immigrant youth and young people of colour—face persistent barriers to employment. COVID-19 restrictions have only exacerbated this problem, causing youth unemployment rates to rise. Early in the pandemic, jobs lost by young people accounted for about a […]

Anas Farhoud remains optimistic in the face of adversity. He and his wife, Razan, left Syria and moved from one country to another for a full decade before finally settling with their two daughters in Canada in 2020. But he never lost faith that they would find a permanent home someday and prosper there. His […]

World Education Services (WES) believes in the power of storytelling and shared resources. In 2019, we reached out to immigrants across North America. We asked about their reasons for leaving home, their challenges along the way, and the advice they would like to share with other newcomers. In this new blog series, we are now […]

Immigrants and refugees have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, with many working on the front lines of the pandemic. In the U.S., 12 million immigrants and refugees work in occupations such as health care and transportation, or in roles that have been some of the hardest hit economically, such as food and domestic services. Similarly, […]

WES Global Talent Bridge is publishing a series of blog posts that highlight the critical work and unique perspectives of IMPRINT network members. This month, WES Global Talent Bridge communications and policy consultant Sara McElmurry connected with Jina Krause-Vilmar, president and CEO of Upwardly Global, a national non-profit that eliminates employment barriers for immigrant and […]