What is the Windsor Essex Local Immigration Partnership?
The Windsor Essex Local Immigration Partnership (WE LIP) is an initiative of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to encourage communities across Ontario to develop a comprehensive plan for the delivery of newcomer services. The WE LIP initiative represents a process to examine the whole system of services currently available and considers how the system could be enhanced to facilitate access to service and to promote the long-term settlement and integration of immigrant newcomers into Windsor and Essex County.
In November 2008, the City of Windsor was given the lead for the Windsor Essex Local Immigration Partnership (WE LIP) initiative by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), formerly Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC).
What We Do
The Windsor Essex County Local Immigration Partnership (WE LIP) engages stakeholders through information sharing, events and a locally-driven strategic planning process to help make Windsor-Essex a more welcoming and inclusive community. The partnership strives to assist non-settlement service providers and the community in developing a greater understanding of newcomer needs and services.
Our goal is to create a community where newcomers and citizens can achieve a higher quality of life and reach their full potential. We strive to accomplish this by fostering community, which contributes to our mutual goal ~ that every new member of our community feels like they truly belong and can successfully contribute to the social and economic fabric of Windsor-Essex.
To provide better outcomes, our key objectives include:
- Partnering with service sectors such as health care, education, housing, children’s services and police to discuss the unique needs of immigrants within those sectors and how we, as a community, can work together to ensure that immigrants have complete access to these services;
- Raising the profile of immigrants by celebrating local success stories;
- Improving employment opportunities for immigrants by reaching out to employers and demonstrating how diversity enriches the workplace;
- Promoting collaboration between organizations to improve access to services for immigrants;
- Strengthening social integration by helping to remove barriers; and
- Encouraging social and cultural connections, active civic participation and a sense of the rights and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship and the value of diversity.
History
January, 2009 marked the first meeting of the Windsor Essex Local Immigration Partnership Council, an assembly of committed stakeholders working towards a common goal ~ creating a welcoming community for newcomers to Windsor-Essex.
In April 2010, A Community Plan to Promote the Settlement and Integration of Immigrants in Windsor and Essex County was submitted to City and County Councils and to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. The full report and the Executive Summary are attached in PDF format in English and French:
Executive Summary
A Community Plan
Moving Forward
Over that summer, the Partnership Council continued to meet to refine the strategies outlined in the original report. In September 2010, a follow-up report was submitted to IRCC. The document, Moving Forward…A Supplement to a Community Plan to Promote the Settlement and Integration of Immigrants in Windsor and Essex County produced the following:
- A governance model which allowed the WE LIP to transition from a research advisory group to a community planning body;
- An Action Plan with identified priorities which will lead the WE LIP over the next two years; and
- A foundation for the ongoing work of the WE LIP which will explore ways to enhance services, minimize duplication and develop ways to evaluate the progress of the WE LIP.
The Moving Forward report is available in English and French.
