Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services
Table of Contents
Abstract
This case study aims at shedding the light on some issues that immigrants, refugees, and new Greater Toronto Area (GTA) settlers face, as well as highlighting the services that the nonprofit organization (NGO) Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services offers them.
Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services is an NGO with offices in five locations in the GTA. Their purpose is to assist newcomers, immigrants, and refugees in settling in and integrating into society by offering free language instruction, job counseling, and housing assistance in 40 different languages.
Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services
The Story Behind the NGO
Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services is a vibrant and varied organization. It is a licensed NGO managed by a volunteer Board of Directors and is primarily funded by the Government of Canada.
Polycultural was formed on February 3, 1993, from the merging of two organizations: Polish Immigrant Aid Services (established in 1973) and Polish Canadian Community Services (founded in 1982). In January 1994, the merger was finalized with the goal of delivering a greater range of services while limiting inefficiencies.
The organization’s name was changed to Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services on August 27, 2000, to better represent the local communities supported by the organization.
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These services have grown to be an indispensable part of the GTA community and have so far helped countless individuals and families improve their lives, whether they are young children, teenagers, adults, or seniors.
Verve Videos’ Help
Why Polycultural Chose Us
Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services approached us to develop a series of videos that would explain their many program offerings and community outreach initiatives.
Polycultural’s financing is contingent on a steady intake of immigrant customers, so their objective was to develop a series of animated videos to improve client admissions, form relationships with partner organizations, and equip clients with an easier means of describing the services offered.
Everyone who has ever lived has left an impact on people around them, and that is what we aspire to do. We believe that even something as simple as a short video can have a positive and powerful influence on those who watch it and for those whom the video is for, and that is exactly what the Polycultural organization saw in us.
We’re a small crew of creatives and professionals working to create the perfect animated explainer video for any purpose you have or industry you belong to.
How Animated Nonprofit Videos Help
It’s no secret that animated nonprofit videos in general are a wonderful tool for promoting different topics and that they are much more engaging than text, especially in the world of business. However, animated videos also provide a large selection of benefits to NGOs, and here’s why:
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Animated nonprofit videos help you present your services by discussing them in a straightforward and simple way
Animated nonprofit videos also pave the way for you to form alliances with your community
Animated nonprofit videos clearly demonstrate the effects and distribution of resources from sponsors and donors, i.e. they enhance your organization’s transparency which is extremely important to benefactors
Our Collaboration with Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services
We prepared three videos for Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services, where one is about the organization as a whole, and the other 2 detail a distinct program and its qualifying requirements, as well as how to interact with the system and a call to action.
To show Polycultural’s family-oriented philosophy where help is accessible for every family member, we created a character family to be utilized throughout the videos – The Bini Family – with emphasis on each individual in a separate video. Teen Bini, for example, discusses his experience with the youth program, whereas Grandma Bini discusses hers with the seniors program.
Welcome to Polycultural
This first animated video offers an overview of the comprehensive services provided by Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services. In other words, the video provides an overview of who they are. We illustrated the newcomer’s path of moving to a new country.
We introduced members of The Bini Family, exhibiting the intake process in which their needs are evaluated and their direction to the appropriate program. The video emphasizes the languages used, underlining that the services are government-funded and are therefore free.
Youth Job Connection Program
In this video, we thought to entice the audience by presenting a testimonial of one of the Youth Program’s members. The program includes job training to at-risk kids who neither are in school or are unemployed, supplemented with a contract in a local business.
First, we displayed a juxtaposition of Teen Bini at work and his family which were introduced in the first animated video — Welcome to Polycultural — to highlight his position in relation to the family’s general experience.
When he meets with a vocational consultant at Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services and participates in the Youth Job Connection program, Teen Bini shares his viewpoint on being a young person looking for work.
We depicted Polycultural’s Toronto headquarters, trailed by Teen Bini completing a job training course. We walk with him through the process of interviewing for a job, getting hired, and beginning to work.
To accentuate the program’s free services, we designed a scenario with the founder’s emblem, while the voiceover explains that it is gratuitous. The video has been utilized not just to attract youths, but also to develop partnerships with program participants.
Post-Discharge Project (Seniors)
The purpose of developing this video was to illustrate the components of the program designed for seniors that provide at-home consultations after being discharged from a hospital. We started with Grandma Bini from The Bini Family whose members were introduced in the first video.
When the animated video’s narrator proceeds to discuss the referral procedure to enroll in the program, Grandma Bini is presented on a rocking chair in a cozy home atmosphere. She is reflected to be at a hospital with her primary healthcare professional in order to exemplify the program’s provision of being referred by a physician.
We underlined the involvement of the Post-Discharge Program‘s developers, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, in making it available to Polycultural’s senior clientele. The scenario with the Needs Assessment guideline demonstrates the program’s additional assistance and counsel.
Clients are not charged for the services, as evidenced by an image of a bill totaling to 0 dollars. This animated video was shown on hospital screens to inform patients and clinicians about the Post-Discharge Program that Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services provides to its senior service users.
Conclusion
Community service is about more than just assisting the community; it is also about making a difference in someone’s life. It can enable a person to grow and connect on many levels, including mentally, emotionally, and physically.
Community outreach fosters a greater feeling of social responsibility – a global perspective on society and a desire to ‘give back’ and assist others.
The foundation of community service or volunteering is making a contribution and supporting others. As a result, it ties us to the society by strengthening it and rendering it a healthier place for everybody to be.
The Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services NGO understands the fundamental importance of these things and has perfected their outreach and service offerings. They have assisted many families in successfully assimilating into Canadian society and continue to lead many people on the path to effective integration.
With their collaboration with Verve Videos, Polycultural was able to spread word of the services they provide and the ways that some of these services can and have helped.