Good news coming from Vancouver, Canada! Non-profit organization Peace Geeks, whose mandate is to build digital tools to empower communities in the pursuit of peace, has launched a free app called Arrival Advisor aimed at helping newcomers connect with services related to housing, health care, banking, education, settlement organizations etc.
The app’s function is to act as a bridge between those who are new to town, and the organizations, communities and services available to them. Given that 1 out of 3 newcomers are not aware of how to access that information, the app is bound to fill the gap and thus fulfill an important community service by facilitating the integration of new immigrants in Vancouver.
Arrival Advisor was inspired by a similar app called Services Advisor, which was developed in 2015 to help Syrian refuges find humanitarian services in Turkey and Jordan. Arrival Advisor is available for free at the iTunes and Google Play stores. Similar apps are being developed in other parts of Canada, too (for example, New Brunswick is about to launch Hullo). Hopefully, in the near future, most Canadian cities will have a similar tool available for the newly arrived.
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