Early Years Refugee Pilot Project Wins United Way Celebration of Community Award

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - March 29, 2012) - The Early Years Refugee Pilot project has won the United Way's Celebration of Community Award for 2011. The Project, the first and only one of its kind in BC, provides refugee children and their primary caregivers with access to developmentally appropriate and culturally competent Early Childhood Development supports and services.

The United Way Celebration of Community Awards are given annually to a group or individual for the impact they have made in the area of Early and Middle Childhood or seniors in the Lower Mainland.

With more than one in five BC children under age 6 living in poverty, programs such as the Early Years Refugee Pilot project provide the support necessary to help break the cycle of poverty and allow refugee children reach their full potential.

The Project operates in six sites throughout the Lower Mainland: Surrey, Burnaby, Tri-Cities, Langley, Vancouver and Richmond. The needs of refugee families within each of these communities differ, and each site is set up specifically to meet the requirements in each community. Best practices can then be shared with other communities to establish a network of support for refugee children and their families.

The win was announced at the annual Scotiabank and United Way Community Spirit Awards, where donors and organizations who helped United Way reach this goal, were honoured. The Scotiabank and United Way Community Spirit Awards, sponsored by Scotiabank, were held in Vancouver, on Thursday, March 29.

At the same event, it was announced that more than $28.6 million has been raised by United Way of the Lower Mainland's 2011 campaign, which will go towards supporting partnerships and prevention-based programs to address key social issues such as child poverty, bullying and seniors' social isolation.

In his tribute to donors and partner organizations, United Way President & CEO Michael McKnight said that with the help of donors and community partners, measurable change was being made to the lives of vulnerable children and seniors in the Lower Mainland.

United Way of the Lower Mainland prevents social problems. Working with 160 community partners, the organization funds almost 500 prevention-based programs each year to create a better future for children and seniors.