The Chinese Canadian Heritage Centre (CCHC), a non-profit community centre on Kent Street has developed a program aimed at helping Chinese seniors engage with their community and learn more about Canada.
The CCHC’s board of directors proposed the project last July to the Ontario Trillium Foundation, which gave the centre a $16,900 grant late last month.
Michael Dagg, director of the CCHC, says the board estimates that there are 500 to 2,000 Chinese seniors aged 60 or above living in downtown Ottawa. They often find themselves alone because their adult children are working.
Xing Huang, chairman of the CCHC’s board of directors, says language is the greatest obstacle for the seniors to integrate into Canadian society, even if they have been in an English-speaking environment for 20 years or more.
“Most of them immigrated to Canada in the ‘60s or ‘70s,” Huang says in Chinese.
“They are lao ku da zhong (working class). They come from the lower class and don’t have much education. They didn’t have the language skills when they came here and it’s very hard for them to learn English.”
Citizenship and Immigration has established different categories for immigrants. Not all of them require fluency in English.
“You are forced to have a certain level of English skill if you immigrate under the regular class,” says Dagg, “but they (Chinese seniors) came under the family class so they didn’t have to learn English before they came.”
Dagg says most of the seniors he meets at the centre can speak some English. But he says he doubts they can handle the paperwork required by different government departments, hospitals and banks.
The seniors have created four social support organizations in the downtown area, but only one of them provides consultancy along with recreational activities. Dagg says their poor English and lack of Canadian know-how have left these groups isolated and short on expertise and financial resources. Simple things like accessing public services and dealing with customer service representatives can sometimes be daunting tasks.
Since the CCHC opened last November, more than 300 seniors have met there regularly, playing ping pong, learning Chinese calligraphy, practicing chorus and Chinese traditional dance.
According to Huang, such activities bring seniors together and give them a sense of belonging and a chance to interact with neighbours.
Huang says, however, that the new seniors project is not just about providing them with a place to meet and socialize. The CCHC is also planning to hire special personnel to teach seniors about general health issues and the Canadian health care system, and even accompany them to the hospital.
Huang hopes the centre can raise more money so it can provide the same services for Chinese seniors living in suburbs.
Dagg says he has never seen any record about how many Chinese seniors live in Ottawa. The 2006 Census by Statistics Canada shows there are 16,180 Chinese, by place of birth, living in the Ottawa-Gatineau area. But there is no break-down of the number of Chinese seniors living in the city.
The CCHC currently has no paid staff and all the work is done by volunteers. Huang says the grant will enable the centre to buy more paint, paper, and ping pong paddles for the seniors, pay its instructors and reimburse the parking fees for its volunteers.
“We are very satisfied with what the centre has been doing,” says 70-year-old Yuanzhen Fan, who came to Canada five years ago with his wife. Fan goes to the ping pong game twice a week.
“I feel I was like a deaf and blind man when I first came here,” the retired technical engineer says in Chinese. “I couldn’t communicate in English.”
Fan says with the help of the CCHC, he continues to learn his new language.
The CCHC is holding a fund raising event on Jan. 29. It is open to the public and Mayor Larry O’Brien is expected to attend.