On May 6th, 2021, United Way held the 2020 Bhayana and United Way Agency Appreciation Awards.

The event was hosted and emceed by local poet and spoken word artist Wakefield Brewster. VIP guests included CEO of Alberta Health Services, Dr. Verna Yiu, Minister Rajan Sawhney, and Mayor Naheed Nenshi. The purpose of the awards ceremony was to recognize the non-profit organizations and individuals that work hard to support our community. United Way bestowed awards from multiple categories to celebrate those who have demonstrated a spirit of collaboration, commitment, and dedication to support our most vulnerable people and keep our community thriving. 

Immigrant Services Calgary (ISC) is honored to have been a finalist in four United Way Bhayana and Agency Awards, and is deeply grateful for winning the following three awards:

Agency Social Innovation Award

This award recognizes an initiative or agency that has implemented a socially innovative idea which led to a community or organizational change.

ISC’s Gateway initiative won the Agency Social Innovation Award. Gateway is an innovative client-centric approach to delivering services to newcomers by way of provisioning a standardized needs assessment followed by a referral process to help clients access appropriate services that will help them unleash their social, economic and civic potential in Canada.

Front-Line Innovative Leadership Award

This award recognizes and rewards individual employees and/or teams who have demonstrated exemplary leadership in their front-line work.

ISC’s Calgary Language Assessment and Referral Centre (CLARC) won the Front-Line Innovative Leadership Award for leading the development of a new proctor-less version of the existing remote language assessment. It was evaluated and approved by the Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks, and ISC became the first agency in Canada to use the innovative language assessment tool.

Together We Can Award

This award recognizes significant partnerships between and among community agencies, community groups, government, businesses, and/or citizens to address and alleviate complex social problems that can’t be solved by one sector or organization alone in order to achieve large-scale, lasting social change.

The Calgary East Zone Newcomers Collaborative (CENC) led by Center for Newcomers, Immigrant Services Calgary, The Immigrant Education Society, Action Dignity, and Calgary Local Immigration Partnership won this award for collaborating together to create a system to help meet the needs of newcomers and ethnocultural communities impacted by the pandemic while considering language barriers and cultural sensitivities.

We would like to thank United Way for organizing the 2020 Bhayana and United Way Agency Appreciation Awards ceremony, and for bringing together community leaders, inspiring speakers, and remarkable teams and individuals. On behalf of ISC, congratulations to all the finalists and award recipients that keep our community strong!