Ottawa Ethno-cultural Seniors Network Projects

Activities Tools Research

Special Events

June 22, 2022 Connecting Seniors Cultural Exhibition and Festival. 10 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Ron Kolbus Lakeside Centre, 102 Greenview Avenue, Ottawa. This FREE event featured a variety of exhibitions and learning opportunities in the areas of peforming, visual and culinary arts. Funding from City of Ottawa: Equity and Inclusion in the Arts Fund.

Digital Literacy

This program is free, highly flexible, and learners hoose what they want to learn. The material we use is written in a clear langugage. It also may be adapted according to the needs of the inidividual groups. We provide one-on-one support, community group on-line training, and share other helpful resources. This is a partnership with the OESN, the Social Planning Council of Ottawa, and Jewish Family Services, with funding from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Ottawa Community Foundation.

View All Training Resources

Culturally-Responsive Dementia Supports

We run several culturally-based dementia day programs. Contact us for more information (Sybil Braganza)

Webinar series on culturally-based dementia supports, 2020. See all webinars here. Funding was provided by the Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation.

Culturally Responsive Community-Based Healthy Brain Program Pilot Design Tool. This tool was developed to help community stakeholders develop thier own model of a “Healthy Brain” program.

Ethno-Cultural Seniors Home Visiting Training Guide

This practical volunteer training and support guide was created to enhance the volunteer work currently done by the different communities and meets the need for more formalized training and support that has a cultural component. The guide is intended to increase the capacity and sustainability of existing ethno-culrural groups in Ottawa who provide volunteer services. It is also meant to act as a resource to mentor young people from different cultural backgrounds who want to volunteer in their own community. Funding was provided by the Government of Canada, New Horizon for Seniors Program. The Guide is available in the following languages:

Addressing Elder Abuse and Neglect

Forum. Ottawa seniors come from many communities that speak over 93 different languages and have diverse cultural backgrounds. In many of the languages of these seniors, there is no word for ‘Elder Abuse’ and as such they do not talk about it openly in their communities. We held a forum, “Collectively We Care – Collectively We Help”, on October 16, 2019, with funding from the Government of Canada New Horizons for Seniors Program. The Forum was hosted to educate ethno-cultural seniors in Ottawa about what constitutes elder abuse. More importantly, it was geared to service providers to enhance their understanding of the needs of ethno-cultural seniors in order to develop services and resources to meet the distinct needs of these seniors. We appreciated the importance of service providers and seniors coming together to address the often hidden issue related to elder abuse and to develop ethno-cultural sensitive solutions. Download the Forum Report here.

Facilitator’s Guide for Community Education. Following on the Forum, we developed a Resource Guide providing information to both deliver talks and to facilitate discussions in the community as a tool for raising awareness about ageism and elder abuse. It includes notes on facilitating open discussion with groups based on culturally appropriate narratives and videos. The Resource Guide has been designed to support bilingual community volunteers to deliver community education. Download the Facilitator’s Guide here. A powerpoint presentation is available here.

Information Sheets on Elder Abuse in Multiple Languages. We also developed culturally-based information sheets to support discussion and improvement. Funding was provided by United Way East Ontario.

Culturally-Based Food Programs

Ethnic Flavors is a project developed in partnership with SPCO, Indo-Canadian Community Centre (ICCC) and Meals-on-Wheels agencies and provides ethnic meals to the seniors. Currently the program offers Indian Vegetarian meals, but we are developing other menu and ethnic choices.

Community Flavors is a project pilot by Nutrition Blocs in partnership with SPCO and Parkdale Food Centre, that provides a biweekly Ethnic Grocery Box to three ethnocultural seniors groups – Latino, Haitian and African seniors. The project is funded by Ottawa Community Foundation and Mazon Canada. With a new grant from Mazon Canada, the pilot will expand to two more groups – Arabic/Middle Eastern and Indigenous seniors.

Social and Physical Activities Including “Sharing Dance”

We run several culturally-based dementia day programs. Contact us for more information (Sybil Braganza). Funding is provided by the City of Ottawa, Ottawa Community Foundation and United Way East Ontario.

Webinar series on culturally-based dementia supports, 2020. See all webinars here. Funding was provided by the Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation.

Culturally Responsive Community-Based Healthy Brain Program Pilot Design Tool. This tool was developed to help community stakeholders develop thier own model of a “Healthy Brain” program.