Cities are the destination of choice for most immigrants. The welcome cities provide to their newest residents is key to successful integration and, in the end, vital to their social and economic health. It’s also essential to the ongoing prosperity of cities themselves. It’s not surprising then that cities worldwide are eager to learn from each other about what works to integrate immigrants.
From November 28 to December 2, a delegation from Toronto, led by Maytree’s president Ratna Omidvar and chairman Alan Broadbent, will visit four cities in Germany: Stuttgart (Nov. 28), Hamburg (Nov. 29), Berlin (Nov. 30 and Dec. 1), and Cologne (Dec. 2), to share good practices in immigrant integration.
Toronto’s delegates are:
- Matt Galloway, Host, Metro Morning, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Matt will speak about how CBC has reinvented itself and achieved national success by paying close attention to who lives in the city;
- Elizabeth McIsaac, Executive Director, Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC). Elizabeth will speak about how working with businesses can ensure that recent immigrants find employment in their field;
- Donna Quan, Deputy Director – Academic, Toronto District School Board. Donna will speak about how the public education system plays an important role in the integration of immigrant youth and their families; and
- Deputy Police Chief, Peter Sloly, Toronto Police Service (TPS). Peter will speak about how TPS has changed itself to reflect the new demographic reality of the most diverse city in Canada.
In each city, Toronto’s delegates will also have an opportunity to visit with staff of German projects to learn about local immigrant integration practices. One of the hoped-for outcomes of this exchange is for each delegate to bring back a good idea that his or her organization may be able to implement.
In the following video, Ratna speaks to the important role cities have to play in the welcoming and successful integration of newcomers. At the end of the day, integration and inclusion is an inherently local phenomenon.
Alan Broadbent speaks about the successful model of immigrant integration that Toronto’s institutions are working hard to establish, how it’s useful and important for us to celebrate and share these successes, but that we also have much to learn from others.
This exchange of ideas is organized in partnership with the Canadian Embassy in Berlin. We also thank our German partners, the Robert Bosch Foundation and the City of Stuttgart in Stuttgart, the Körber Foundation in Hamburg, the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin, and the Bertelsmann Foundation in cooperation with the Ministry of Labour, Integration and Social Affairs, North Rhine-Westfalia, in Cologne.
Find out more about the tour, read about the good ideas in integration being presented, and a daily update as we tour the four cities.
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