Supporting Educational Learning and Training for Low Literacy Immigrant Women: A Partnership Approach Between the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association and Bow Valley College

Immigrant and refugee women with limited or interrupted education face a range of challenges to full participation and integration into Canadian society, including longer times to learn Canada’s official languages and barriers to employment. This necessitates a broad array of immigrant bridging programs that immigrant and refugee women can avail and that are customized and tailored to their specific needs. The Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association (CIWA) in partnership with the Bow Valley College (BVC) developed one such program to assist low literacy women transition to the Canadian workplace as Child Development Assistants in the child care field. This article presents the model upon which this program is based and outlines key aspects that led to average employability rate of 93 % among its clients.