History and evaluation of Bangladeshi-Canadian Community

We got currently around one hundred thousand Bangladeshis live in Canada while 70% live in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

Most of these people came in last 15 years to settle in Canada as family class or independent immigrants, entrepreneurs, businessmen or refugee claimants. We also got some foreign students and non-immigrant work authorized Bangladeshi-South Asian origin citizens.

Before year 2000 we local GTA Canadian-Bangladeshis did not have any office based public or private funded registered settlement house or agency or services except few socio-cultural agencies such as Bangladesh Association of Toronto, Ontario started in late 70s to help newcomers without office from organizational leaders’ home by giving info, counseling, advocacy and referrals of service users to mainstream settlement houses or agencies like Bloor ILC, Skills for Change for settlement service, English language and career educational counseling or training or finding employment or counseling on family issues, refugee claim etc.

Social or community work could occur in the form of religious missionaries or settlement houses by the individual groups or institutes fundraised from either own pockets or from public/govt. and private or NGO sectors. Settlement House movement started first in UK where Samuel Barnett and his wife Henrietta opened first settlement house called Toynbee Hall in 1884 with a group of students from Oxford University. They hoped to recreate the bonds of community that had been lost with the rise of urban industrialism and subsequent middle class migration to the suburbs. They encouraged friendships with the local inhabitants and used their university educational training to help improve local living and working conditions and we Bangladeshi local settlement agency can follow part of their model as well. From 1884 opening of Toynbee Hall, the settlement approach spread rapidly throughout Britain and North America. By 1896 there were 44 and by 1901 there were 100 and by 1905 there were 200 and by 1911 there were 400 settlement houses in industrial cities of UK/USA/Canada. Jane Addams, called the mother of social work winning the Nobel peace prize in 1931 opened the first American settlement house called Hull House in Chicago in 1889.

Canadian settlement house social work movement garnered sponsorship from a variety of groups including college/university students, church groups, local women’s council, and civic associations as well as interest groups on social welfare and reform. In the year of 1902 American settlement worker Sara Libby Carson established first Canadian settlement house in Toronto called: Evangelia House with support of Toronto dominion of YWCAS, Toronto University Women Club, Toronto Local Council of women, nurses, teachers, musicians and artists. In 1913, Edith Elwood, Carson’s successor opened the second Canadian settlement house called Riverdale House. Now there are around 200 mainstream and ethnic Canadian settlement houses or agencies serving local Canadians in the Greater Tororonto Area.

The first Bangladeshi-Canadian settlement worker is Khurshida Qureshi who started serving newcomer immigrants and local background Bangladeshis from 1988 under GTA agency called; Bloor Info Life skills Centre. The first two Bangladeshi office based and offering regular services settlement houses or community agencies are called Bangladeshi-Canadian Community Services registered and opened by chartered accountant, Mustaq Ahmed as founder who gain experiences as board member from Bloor ILC. when the second one is called Bengali Support Services founded by a female medical doctor, Stella Rahman working as a researcher in CAMH(Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Research). Besides these there are over 25 Bangladeshi ethnic media and socio-cultural agencies for recreation (Eid Reunion, summer picnic, sports, cultural show and Bangladeshi national events of Feb. IMLD/March Independence/April Baishakhi/December Victory Day etc.) opened and served our ethnic community without office, website, funds and regular plan, programs and services for newcomer clients.

There are also over 50 Bangladeshi GTA social or community workers working for own ethnic or other ethnic or mainstream settlement house or community support agencies. Besides community service agencies in GTA we also had 3-5 ethnic Bangla media called Weekly Deshe-Bideshe, Weekly Desher Dak in mid 90s and later our readers got Weekly Bangle Kagoj, Weekly Bangla Reporter, Weekly Shomoy, Weekly Desher Alo, weekly Aajkal. Our readers and viewers are so fortunate that by 2010 we have 4 printed media, 3 on-line media(www.bengalitimes.net, www.canadabdnews.ca and www.notundesh.com ) and 3 TV broadcasting media called ATN Bangla, Deshi TV and Bangla TV. I am very lucky to work closely with the editors and publishers of each of our ethnic media by contributing educational or social work news stories, articles and columns.

Enclosed, the list (collected from Ontario govt. website) of all non-profit GTA Bangladeshi-Canadian office based agencies on settlement, education, career/profession, employment, healthcare, legal, business, socio-culture and faith with regular programs/services or without office/programs/services:

Agency: Reg. Year Reg. Office Services(Y/N)

1. Bangladesh Association of Ontario, Toronto 1975
2. Bangladesh Association of Toronto, Ont. 1991
3. Bangladesh-Canada Association of London 1992
4. Bangladesh-Canada Association of Hamilton 1999
5. Bangladesh Canada Binodon Cultural Society 1993
6. Bangladesh Canada Hindu Cultural Society 1995
7. Bangladesh Jatiya Cultural Society of Ont. 1997
8. Assn. Of Bangladeshi Engineers, Ontario 1997
9. Bangladesh Community Center of Toronto 1998
10. Bangladesh Catholic Assn of Ontario 1999
11. Bangladesh Forum of Canada 2000
12. Bangladesh Society of Ontario 2000
13. Bangladesh-Canadian Community Service 2000
14. Bengali family Support Services, Ont. 2000


BDST 1400 HRS, FEB 2012