Abstract

This paper concerns the availability and accessibility of support services for senior immigrants from the former Yugoslavia, and the nature of their social networks and community capacity. Interviews were held with 10 seniors from the former Yugoslavia looking into their experiences of accessing services, community involvement and social connectedness. Seniors from the former Yugoslavia belong to a community that is dispersed, small and lacking coordination and organized leadership. For these reasons, seniors face challenges accessing linguistically and culturally appropriate community support services due to a lack of information and limited English language skills. Politics and religion appear more salient to earlier waves of immigrants from this region than to those who arrived in the 1990s.

Highlights

  • The focus of my Major Research Paper (MRP) concerns the availability and accessibility of support services for senior immigrants from the former Yugoslavia, and the nature of their social networks and community capacity

  • What could be done to improve the conditions of senior immigrants? In an attempt to answer this question, I consulted the professional literature on the subject only to learn that there was little systematic research on senior immigrants

  • Existing literature suggests that senior immigrants in Canada continue to be systematically excluded from full participation in economic, social, political, and cultural activities (Neugebauer-Visano, 1995; McDonald et al, 2001; Durst, 2005) and that there seems to be a marked difference between the presumed equitable availability and actual access to services (Neugebauer-Visano, 1995)

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Summary

Introduction

The focus of my Major Research Paper (MRP) concerns the availability and accessibility of support services for senior immigrants from the former Yugoslavia, and the nature of their social networks and community capacity. Nana and dedo, came to Canada as sponsored family members in 1996 when they were 72 and 78 years old, respectively While they were relieved to be close to their family after much displacement during the war in Bosnia, upon arrival in Canada they faced many difficulties in obtaining proper information about the social services they were eligible for, and they struggled to access community and health services that were culturally sensitive. They experienced a previously unknown sense of isolation, primarily due to language and financial barriers which, when compounded with the geographic dispersal of recent immigrants from the former Yugoslavia, resulted in great difficulties in meeting seniors who shared their language and culture. Certain emerging communities, such as the Caribbean community lack a sufficient financial, social and institutional ‘critical mass’, resulting in significant implications for seniors when it comes to service provisions

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