10 November 2020, Calgary – The Philippine Consulate General (PCG) in Calgary and the Calgary Catholic Immigrant Society (CCIS) have agreed to work together to promote the welfare of Filipino workers and immigrants in Alberta, Canada.

 

The agreement was reached following the visit of Consul General Zaldy Patron to the CCIS head office in Calgary on 30 October 2020 where he met with Mr. Fariborz Birjandian, Chief Operating Officer, Ms. Gordana Radan, Director – Business, Training and Employment Services, Ms. Jessica Juen, Program Manager Community Support Services, and Mr. Magno Daria, Client Support Worker.

 

Founded in 1981, CCIS is a non-profit organization providing settlement and integration services to all immigrants and refugees in Southern Alberta.

 

With over 95 diverse programs and services out of seven locations and 25 outreach locations, CCIS is the largest immigrant-serving agency in Canada’s Prairie Provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba), and the fourth largest in Canada.  One of its programs is the Community Support Services (CSS), which benefitted 226 Filipino TFWs between October 2019 and September 2020. 

 

The PCG, on the other hand, opened its office in Calgary in February 2016 to provide consular services to the estimated 175,000 Filipinos in Alberta and another 34,000 in Saskatchewan, the two Canadian provinces under its jurisdiction.

 

Under their partnership, the PCG and CCIS will co-organize information sessions to educate the Filipinos in Alberta on topics such as the PCG’s consular services and the services of the Social Security System (SSS) and Pag-Ibig.

 

Likewise, the PCG will promote to the Filipino community the information sessions of CCIS on certain subjects like Employment Rights and Responsibilities (Employment Standards Codes); Income Tax Clinics; and Culturally Positive Parenting in Canada.

 

“Through this partnership between the PCG and CCIS, more Filipinos in Alberta will become more informed about the consular and social services available to them while they are in the province as temporary foreign workers or immigrants,” Consul General Patron remarked following his meeting with the executives of CCIS.

 

In November 2019, the PCG also forged a partnership with the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association (CIWA) to promote CIWA’s Filipino Community Development Program to the Filipino community in Alberta.