The Centre for Newcomers interviews Dr. Doreen Rabi
When people arrive in Canada, they often bring tremendous strengths, experience, and resilience with them. Many arrive in good health, ready to build new lives, careers, and communities.
Yet the settlement journey can be far more complicated than many Canadians realize.
Newcomers often face overlapping challenges while trying to establish themselves in a new country. Professional and educational opportunities can be difficult to access. Navigating an unfamiliar healthcare system can be overwhelming. Experiences of discrimination, exclusion, and racism can create additional barriers to health and well-being.
Over time, these pressures can take a significant toll.
These realities are why the Canadian Collaboration for Complex Care (C4) is working alongside community partners such as the Centre for Newcomers to better understand healthcare experiences and identify opportunities for meaningful change. Through research, dialogue, and community engagement, the partnership aims to ensure that people are not only able to access healthcare, but are able to do so in ways that feel welcoming, inclusive, and respectful.
This work begins by listening.
Together, researchers, community members, healthcare providers, and partner organizations are exploring the challenges newcomers encounter when seeking care and identifying ways to make healthcare systems more responsive to the realities of people’s lives. The partnership helps create opportunities for communities to share their experiences while also opening conversations with healthcare leaders and decision-makers.
What emerges is a more complete understanding of health.
Health is influenced not only by medical care, but by employment, education, financial stability, belonging, trust, and the ability to navigate complex systems. Addressing these challenges requires collaboration across sectors and a willingness to work alongside communities rather than simply study them.
For C4, this work reflects a core belief that improving healthcare starts with understanding people’s experiences and building solutions together.
The challenges are complex, and the work is ongoing. But through strong partnerships, shared learning, and a commitment to dignity and inclusion, there is an opportunity to create healthcare systems that better support all communities.
That future is not built by any one organization alone. It is built through relationships, trust, and a shared commitment to helping people thrive.
Original video also available on LinkedIn and Facebook (login required). Reposted here with permission from the Communications team at the Centre for Newcomers.
Please visit the Centre for Newcomers to see more about the great work they’re doing to support those new to life in Calgary, Alberta, and Canada.
