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SOICS breaks ground on new location

South Okanagan Immigrant and Community Services broke ground on their new Ellis Street location.
web1_170215-T-PWN-GroundbreakingSOICS

South Okanagan Immigrant and Community Services is officially counting down to the move into their new home at 340 Ellis St.

“It feels very exciting it has been a long process we’ve been working on for several years, so it’s really going to improve and enhance our facilities for our clients and our staff,”said Jean Makosz, SOICS board chair.

SOICS helps new Canadians settle into their new life with language classes, workshops, employment services and settlement services — helping with the paperwork and applications required for a new resident to Canada.

SOICS had an official groundbreaking ceremony on Feb. 14. Their services are moving from the current location at 508 Main St. and aiming to have the new building completed in either the middle or end of August this year.

“We were looking for extra space, we needed to expand to allow for more office space for clients, classroom space and particularly having more child minding space so more clients can access English classes,” said Makosz.

Child minding is an important aspect of what SOICS offers for those taking critical English language courses.

“It’s only for the students who are attending the language classes which is about two and a half hours per session. So a lot of stay-at-home moms or new immigrants that come in, it’s very important for them to have access to the child minding so they can improve their languages or attend our workshops to develop certain skills,”said Tahira Saeed, SOICS program manager.

SOICS will be able to expand child minding, language classes, computer classes and employment services with the new space and services are going to remain open during the transition.

It is a project two years in the making with increasing clientele every year.

“With that we have to increase our services and, like Jean said, we were getting very tight in there,” Saeed said.

SOICS served 1,500 clients from 62 different countries last year.

“This year it’s going to be more than that,” Saeed said.