By Jackie Sargent, ACCA Staff

If you’re not familiar with the work of the Multicultural Health Brokers Co-op (MCHB), you’re not alone. It wasn’t until I met with the Executive Director, Yvonne Chiu, that I realized how amazing and important their work is for new Canadians living in Edmonton.

The MCHB started 25 years ago to support Edmonton’s newcomers by providing them with tools and resources that would enable them to thrive and contribute to the community. MCHB’s team of cultural brokers understand and help address the social, economic, and language difficulties that immigrants and refugees face when they settle into the community. They provide a wealth of services, including peri-natal health, family support services, competency training, seniors outreach, and food security.

ACCA reached out to MCHB to see how they were coping with the COVID-19 outbreak and what impact it has had on their organization and their ability to serve their 25 ethnocultural and immigrant/refugee communities. What we heard was an outpouring of positivity even as they struggle to support their community:

• The MCHB broker colleagues (the Community Health Workers) have been working hard providing one-on-one support through the phone, Facebook, and other digital technology. They have been the key source of information about the pandemic as well as government programs that have emerged to support families.

• MCHB is providing training to the brokers so they can help families with members who have lost their jobs apply for the federal CERB.

• They have started collaborating with immigrant-serving organizations, natural leaders, the University of Alberta, and the City of Edmonton to look at engaging and enhancing the existing infrastructure for information dissemination and engagement within ethnocultural communities to share salient information and to gather knowledge about how community members and their families are doing. 

• They are developing proposals in collaboration with the senior-serving sector to access the emergency fund provided by the provincial government to do deeper and more scaled-up outreach support to vulnerable seniors in 15 ethnocultural communities. 

Despite their positive attitude, MCHB needs help to address additional challenges their communities face:

• The most vulnerable community members include isolated seniors, particularly those of refugee background; families that have been impacted by family violence; and families with a member with disabilities or complex health issues. 

• Food insecurity: prior to COVID-19, MCHB provided food hampers to 200 families. Recent survey results showed 488 families (roughly 1,417 individuals) are now in need of food hampers due to large numbers of people being laid off or having hours cut back.

• Lack of technology to support home schooling of children and youth and for adults to access online information and resources, including funding applications.

• Language barriers and limited access to accurate sources of information about COVID-19, including preventative measures and resources available to support the community.

Most of MCHB’s funding comes from contracts and grants from the federal and provincial governments, most of which have been confirmed. However, these grants only cover their pre-COVID operations and do not address the resources needed to help scale-up their work to allow them to support the health and well-being of their community members.