Multicultural Senior Outreach Program
The Multicultural Senior Outreach Program – a partnership program with SAGE (Senior Association of Greater Edmonton), involves a team of Multicultural Health Brokers with deep connections within their ethnocultural communities, of which our isolated seniors are part of.
With the active outreach, our team of Brokers are able to find and connected with isolated seniors for addressing their fundamental needs and hopes. Our seniors are amazing people who each have a lifetime of experiences and wisdom. We strive to rekindle their sense of worth and what they still have to offer as true elders in their families and communities.
For couple of decades, MCHB Co-op, the City of Edmonton and the Edmonton Senior Coordinating Council has researched and learned that our seniors struggle with 5 enduring issues, regardless of their migration pathway and immigration status.
- Language barriers and cultural distance from mainstream services
- leading to loneliness and isolation,
- Poverty – resulting from systemic and registration factors
- Leading to housing insecurity
- Systemic lack of responsiveness to these seniors needs and strength – particularly the health, mental health and income support sectors.
Brokers serve vulnerable seniors in the following communities:
- Bhutanese,
- Kurdish,
- Iraqi,
- Syrian,
- Eritrean.
- Ethiopian,
- Former Yugoslavian,
- Karen,
- Korean,
- South Sudanese,
- Spanish speaking,
- Romanian,
- Russian,
- Oromo and Somali
Our team of Brokers work within the MCHB Co-op’s 5 spheres of empowerment (one-on-one support, mutual support groups among the seniors, community organizing to improve on the well being of the seniors, collaborative practice with other senior-serving organizations, and seeking relevant actions to impact policy and systemic changes impacting our seniors).
In the process the team of Brokers and our colleagues at Sage help seniors overcome language, cultural and systemic barriers. Together with the seniors, language and culturally barriers to equitable access, mutual support groups and natural leadership emerges among the seniors, caring community natural leaders are engaged and key colleagues within the senior serving sectors and mainstream systems learn more about our seniors strengths and struggles.
Together with Sage, we work with agencies to communicate the unique challenges our seniors face to improve the systems that they are trying to access. We work with organizations like Drive Happiness and GEF Seniors Housing to address our seniors needs.
Under normal circumstances, there are regular group meetings that include opportunities to socialize and may include some English learning, digital literacy, workshops on how to navigate systems and other requested topics. During the pandemic, some groups continue to meet virtually.
To learn more about his program contact Cheri Harris at Cheri@mchb.org
This partnership program primarily received funding from United Way and City of Edmonton’s FCSS Funding.
What are people saying?
“They said because they now have a MCHB Senior Outreach Broker, they know where to go when they have a problem. e.g., when they are hungry, isolated, need money, housing and even when they need cell phone and require PPE. They have more confidence. They say, ‘Now we have you, we do not worry. No matter how hard the pandemic is – isolating us – always your hand is with us.’”
“As a senior who was not connected to community resources, I needed information on what is available in the community and what is happening around me especially in time of COVID. [My Broker has] increased my knowledge of community resources which meant that I know where I can go if need support with my health, housing issues and also news on what is happening in regard to COVID.”
For full stories, visit the Age of Wisdom website.
This year, our project is a collaboration with:
Sage Seniors Association and CMHA Edmonton Chapter
With funding from:
Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) program | Alberta.ca