On October 31, 2019, Masala Wok Restaurant in Edmonton was full with volunteers who were part of the Indo-Canadian Women’s Association (ICWA) 2019 volunteer celebration.
Established in 1984, the ICWA has been helping immigrant women with settlement, skill building, adult education, and ensuring that they are able to feel at home in Canada. Miriam Thomas, the President of the Association told Diversity Magazine that they do celebrate volunteers every year but have not done so for the last three years, and decided to do it again this year.
“…We want to appreciate the amount of time, energy and hard work volunteers have put for our organization to grow…,” the president added.
The ICWA has developed a rock-solid loyal volunteer culture since its creation. Suneeta Jobanputra who has volunteered for ICWA for years now has kept fate with the organization in various volunteer capacity in order not to give up her association with what she described as, “this is a wonderful organization because of the great work they do with seniors, youth…”.
Geeta Das, a Psychologist by trade, also told Diversity Magazine of her long term volunteer association with the ICWA since its creation.
About the ICWA
The ICWA has served over 45,000 clients since its inception in 1984, and is one of the very few immigrant serving and social services organizations serving the Millwoods area. It has doubled its annual intake of clients and currently serves 85% more clients than expected as per contracts with the core funding agencies. It now employs 12 full/part-time staff speaking 9 languages, as well as, 15 full-time and over 50 part-time volunteers.
