Vaidik and his big sister Stuti were eager to embrace life in Canada after immigrating to Brantford with their family. They joined a week-long summer program especially for immigrant children where they enjoyed favorite Canadian pastimes including swimming, bowling and visiting their local YMCA for children’s programming. They also learned important lessons like bike safety and rules of the road.
This daycamp-like experience was a pilot project of YMCA Immigrant Settlement Services in Brantford. It averaged 17 children a day from countries including India, China, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan and Colombia.
It was the first time that Vaidik and Stuti had ever tried bowling, and although they once visited a pool in India they didn’t learn to swim in their homeland because there were no pools in their city of one million.
Vaidik and Stuti were extremely shy at the beginning of the week but soon started to come out of their shells with the help of YMCA staff who encouraged them to join in and, when necessary, spoke to them in their first language, Gujarati.
This program helped give Vaidik and Stuti the confidence to try new activities in their new country. “We would like our children to be involved in all activities,” says their father Nilesh through a Hindi translator.
The YMCA offers a wide variety of programming to help all children and their families reach their full potential. Help us change lives and keep kids safe by donating to the YMCA Strong Kids campaign.
