SEAS Centre to hold workshops on Filipino workers’ rights

SEAS Centre to hold workshops on Filipino workers’ rights

TORONTO–The Support Enhance Access Service Centre (SEAS) is holding three more workshops within the months of January to May as part of its Filipino Workers’ Right & Equity project.

SEAS Centre is a settlement agency which has been providing services for newcomers, largely for the South East Asian community, since 1986. Its Filipino program was started in 2003 and has been delivering services to the Filipino community in partnership with other community organizations, including the Filipino Workers’ Support Committee (FWSC).

The Filipino Workers’ Rights & Equity project was launched in July 2004, after consulting the FWSC on the needs of Filipino workers. The one-year project, funded by the Access and Equity Grant of the City of Toronto, aims to promote the rights of Filipino workers to receive fair and just treatment in their workplaces, and in general, to decrease the barriers which prevent Filipino newcomers from participating in Canadian society. A huge focus of the project is Filipinos under the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), as they have been identified as one of the most vulnerable groups among working Filipinos in Canada.

Three workshops have already been successfully completed in the fall of 2004. Workshop topics were Immigration & Family Sponsorship, the Employment Standards Act as it Applies to Live-in Caregivers, and Immigration Law for Live-in Caregivers. In these workshops, participants learn from presentations given by resource speakers, as well as share their personal experiences and gain a sense of solidarity among each other.

One of the participants, a live-in caregiver, comments, “It helps to know that I am not the only one experiencing these kinds of problems at work, and that there are many others who are willing to get involved to make the situation of caregivers better.”

Workshops in 2005 will cover topics such as human rights in the workplace, occupational health and safety, Employment Insurance and just wages.

The project will culminate with a one-day conference, where all the participants of the workshops will have an opportunity to come together and synthesize the knowledge they have learned from the project.
For more information on the upcoming workshops, contact Haydee Cual at (416) 362-1375 x-23 or haydee@seascentre.org.

(PRESS RELEASE)