City wants international students to feel welcome

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The City of Moncton has hired an international student integration co-ordinator, who is now conducting a survey asking students about the challenges they face.

Serge Zably came to Moncton 10 years ago as a student at l’Universite de Moncton, from the west African nation Ivory Coast, and decided to stay. He said coming to Moncton from a city of 10 million people was a big change, but he soon decided he wanted to stay and make a life here. He believes a majority of students also want to stay here, but the main challenges they face include the language barrier, housing, transportation and finding a job.

Serge Zably, originally from the Ivory Coast of Africa, is the new international student integration co-ordinator for the City of Moncton. His first task is doing a survey of the roughly 3,000 international students in the city to learn about their challenges and aspirations.

New position is part of city’s immigration strategy

Zably says there are roughly 3,000 international students from more than 40 countries at post-secondary institutions in Moncton, including l’Universite de Moncton, Crandall University, New Brunswick Community College, Oulton College and others. His job is to reach out to the student population and help them integrate into the community. The city says the position is the first of its kind in a New Brunswick municipality, and fits into the Greater Moncton Immigration Strategy.

“We are really excited about this position as we recognize that international students can face some additional barriers to integration,” said Angelique Reddy-Kalala, the city’s immigration strategy officer. She said students make up an important part of immigration. One of the main goals will be to make students feel comfortable here, so they will want to stay.

Zably is now visiting post-secondary institutions to meet with students and encourage them to fill out a survey on the city’s website. He said information gathered through the survey will be used to create an action plan of services to help students integrate into society. He said the number of international students has grown tremendously over the last five years and the city wants to encourage them to stay here after graduation.

The challenges they face include language, housing, job searching, transportation, daycare, social activities. He’s hoping the survey will provide more information on the challenges and how they can be addressed. Once the survey results are analyzed, there may be a callout to the community to help students find housing and jobs.

“If we want the international students to stay here, we need to take action,” he said.

Zably said international students are also looking to get involved in social activities, the arts and sports. He hopes to start a committee to help them get involved in community events.

“We are here to support international students because we know their contribution and how they are valuable to the community,” he said.

• The survey for international students in the City of Moncton can be found online at letschatmoncton.ca.