Diversity survey results
Posted Dec 10, 2011 04:55:00 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A survey in Cambridge is showing foreign-born respondents continue to face barriers integrating into the community.
The second year of the Cambridge Community Cultural Diversity Survey is collected for the City of Cambridge and then provided to community partners, service providers, housing, Police and many other groups by the Cambridge Cultural Diversity Office (CCDO)
Cultural Diversity Specialist, Lakhdeep Singh Dhaliwal tells 570 News the survey started online, “we invited Cambridge residents to fill out as much as they could to the best of their knowledge some information and perceptions, experiences and opinions about diversity in Cambridge.”
Dhaliwal said the survey then went to the streets, “so we went through our partners, including the Police, the Islamic Centre, Conestoga College and K-W Housing, and what we did was we went door to door basically.”
The survey was translated into 5 of the most frequently used language in Cambridge; Polish, Punjabi, Urdu, French and Spanish.
What did the results show? Dhaliwal said, “indeed, discrimination, racism, barriers to employment are apparent in Cambridge.”
However, Dhaliwal said, “when you compare what the respondents are saying in terms of being foreign-born versus Canadian-born respondent, what the foreign-born respondents are saying that [Cambridge] is indeed a great place for newcomers to come to, however barriers still exist in our community.”
The three main barriers brought to the attention of the CCDO are, “education, employment and new this year, is out while shopping, folks are experiencing all types of barriers,” Dhaliwal said. Last year, the survey revealed “education, education and housing.”
Another common thread running through-out the survey is language barriers.
Respondents from 27 different nations took part in the survey, with the top three countries of origin of respondents being Iraq, India and England.
This diversity survey helps guide the work of the Cultural Diversity Office, which is funded by the City of Cambridge, “where CCDO sheds light in terms of educating, advocating, capacity building and intervention. It really helps shape the workings of the CCDO and then what it does outside of that is it helps to promote harmony amongst the various ethno-cultural groups that are in Cambridge,” said Dhaliwal.
