French group develops guidebook, training

A French group is developing a guidebook and training for organizations to better welcome, integrate and retain newcomers and Francophiles in their organizations.

The Coopérative d’intégration francophone de l’Î.-P.-É. (CIF) helps settle French-speaking newcomers to the Island and is also in charge of the francophone population growth portfolio.

In wanting to be more inclusive of Islanders who communicate at various levels of French and who want to be more present in the francophone community, they are developing this guidebook and training.

“We know there are many people out there who have learned French, be it through French immersion or classes in adulthood or even their family may have spoken French at home, but they never get a chance to use it outside of that context or are not confident enough in their ability to do so,” says Noella Richard, project coordinator.

“According to Statistics Canada, there were nearly 13,000 French as a second language Islanders in 2016. We want to make sure these francophiles and newcomers get the chance to be a part of the French community if they like and use their acquired language in different situations.”

They are presently consulting with people in those two groups to see what their needs are.

“We have just finished a survey with newcomers to see how best to reach them and what kinds of activities they prefer, and now we are launching a survey to reach Francophiles. We will be following this up with focus groups across the Island to get a better idea of how organizations can reach these groups and better serve their needs.”

To help them in this project, CIF has received funding from ACOA, Canadian Heritage, and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

Francophile (no matter what level) who would like to participate in the survey or be part of the focus groups, go on the CIF’s website www.tonile.ca/en/ and click on the links.

The survey may be done in either French or English.

“We know there are many people out there who have learned French, be it through French immersion or classes in adulthood or even their family may have spoken French at home, but they never get a chance to use it outside of that context or are not confident enough in their ability to do so.” Noella Richard