Newcomers and immigrant serving organizations in Saskatchewan have reason to celebrate with the recent announcement from the Government of Saskatchewan that they will be renewing the Immigrant Access Fund of Saskatchewan (IAF SK).
IAK SK is a non-profit organization that provides recent immigrants with character-based repayable microloans of up to $10,000. The proposed agreement signed between the provincial government and IAF SK will provide $204,131 in operational funding to enable 58 microloans. The microloans can be used for activities related to training, upgrading, licensing, certification, registration and/or memberships required for employment in their occupation in Saskatchewan.
AIF SK was involved in the Government of Canada’s Foreign Credential Recogntion Loans Pilot Project in 2011 along with CCEDNet members SEED Winnipeg and l’Association Communautaire d’emprunt de Montréal. The Pilot project was initiated in part based on the demonstrated success of Alberta’s Immigrant Access Microloan Program
- For more information on this announcement, see the Government of Saskatchewan’s press release.
- Here are more resources on CED initiatives to support Immigrant and Newcomer socioeconomic inclusion, from our toolbox
