Racialized communities strategy

About the strategy

Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) has committed to developing a multi-year, multi-faceted, province-wide racialized

communities strategy that will build upon the services and supports that LAO already has in place.

Contents

Racialized communities strategy | Stratégie à l’intention des communautés racialisées
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Infographic: The Translation Project

Last modified: April 18, 2017

Click on the image for a PDF version of the infographic

What the numbers tell us

  • 1 in 5 racialized families live in poverty in Canada, compared to 1 in 20 non-racialized families
  • 1.1 MILLION racialized persons living in poverty in Canada in 2006 — 52% lived in Ontario
  • In two of Canada’s largest cities, more than half of all persons living in poverty are from racialized groups:
    • 62% Toronto
    • 58% Vancouver
  • Racialized communities in Canada face high levels of poverty:
    • 9% Poverty rate for non-racialized persons
    • 22% Poverty rate for racialized persons
  • Almost three-quarters of racialized persons living in poverty in Canada have a mother tongue other than English or French

What we’ve heard from various communities

  • There needs to more information available about how rights and how Legal Aid Ontario can help.
  • Information needs to be available in languages that clients understand.
  • More information can empower clients to get the help that they need.

What we’ve started to do

We looked at the most requested languages among our clients:

  • Arabic
  • Chinese
  • Dari
  • Farsi
  • Hungarian
  • Russian
  • Somali
  • Spanish
  • Tamil
  • Turkish

We looked at our most frequently downloaded brochures and fact sheets:

  • Legal Aid Ontario can help
  • Finding the right legal aid lawyer
  • What to do before your criminal court first appearance?
  • Custody and access issues for those at risk of deportation*

*This brochure was translated into the following languages: Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish Somali, Tagalog, and Tamil.

LAO’s Racialized Communities Strategy

Legal Aid Ontario is developing a Racialized Communities Strategy. In the first phase, we’ve been talking to people in different communities to find out what types of legal issues are impacting them and whether there are gaps in our services.

Our Translation Project is one of a number of initiatives that we are undertaking as part of the Racialized Communities Strategy.

Sources

For more information