Refugees are on welfare and get into difficulty because the Federal Immigration policy does not give them work permits and Povincial Education policy does not provide English as a second language. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this study was to understand the meaning of "opportunity" as expressed in the experiences of three recent refugee youth from Central America (Guatemala and El Salvador). The setting of the study was MOSAIC'S Youth Job Corps programme in Vancouver, Canada. This four-month voluntary programme was designed to give immigrant Canadian youth language skills to facilitate their entry into the work force. Data for the study were obtained through a twenty-week field study at the Job Corps site followed by the construction of three case studies based upon a series of interviews. Among the findings of the study were the following: the three refugees used a notion of opportunity as the overriding theme in defining their situation in Canada. This theme contained two aspects. First, the "what" of opportunity was future-oriented and contained a social dimension of "wanting to become someone," a material dimension concerned with "wanting to have things," and a familial dimension of "wanting to maintain the family unit." Second, the "how" of opportunity referred to the way the three refugees defined opportunity in terms of their past experiences, their initial difficulties since coming to Canada, the support networks available to them in Canada, their perception of the lives of other immigrants, and finally, the age factor. There was a strong awareness among the refugees studied that their attainment of personal goals (the "what" of opportunity) was dependent on acquiring fluency in the English language and in their finding secure employment with career mobility. The study also found that many of the refugees' future aspirations were related to their own past experiences in their countries of origin. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

Undetected acute Pulmonary Tuberculosis in the 50,000 refugee immigrants from Southeast Asia to Canada would constitute a serious public health hazard. The 10,000 Southeast Asian refugee immigrants to British Columbia in 1979/80 were rescreened for acute Pulmonary Tuberculosis despite provincial and federal health authorities disagreeing on the need for such rescreening. This thesis demonstrates that the rescreening of the refugee immigrants was warranted by: A) Comparing the rate per 100,000 population with acute Pulmonary Tuberculosis among: 1) The Southeast Asian refugee immigrants arriving in British Columbia in 1979/80 with the rates of acute Pulmonary Tuberculosis per 100,000 population for the three-year period 1976/78 among 2) the general population of British Columbia, 3) the registered native Indian population of British Columbia, 4) the non-refugee Asian immigrant population arriving in British Columbia, and B) Estimating the increased risk of acute Pulmonary Tuberculosis to the general public from the presence of the 10,000 refugee immigrants in British Columbia. Age-specific rates of acute Pulmonary Tuberculosis and the prevalence rates of acute Pulmonary Tuberculosis confirmed bacteriologically were calculated with statistics extracted from the records of the Division of Tuberculosis Control of British Columbia, the Federal Department of Health and Welfare, and the Department of Immigration. Comparison of the age-specific rates demonstrated that acute Pulmonary Tuberculosis occurred 6 times more frequently in the refugee immigrants than in the general population of British Columbia, and 1.25 times more frequently in the refugee Asian immigrants than in the non-refugee Asian immigrants. Comparison of the prevalence rates demonstrated that acute Pulmonary Tuberculosis confirmed bacteriologically occurred 3 times more frequently in the registered native Indian population of British Columbia than in the refugee immigrants to British Columbia. The extra public health risk of acute Pulmonary Tuberculosis from the presence of 10,000 refugee immigrants in British Columbia for one year was estimated to be 730 in 10⁶ for each member of the general population of British Columbia. The rate of acute Pulmonary Tuberculosis occurring in the 10,000 refugee immigrants arriving in British Columbia in 1979-1980 confirmed that the rescreening of the refugee immigrants was warranted. Recommendations were made to centralize the rescreening program within British Columbia so as to minimize the public health hazards of acute Pulmonary Tuberculosis occurring in the Southeast Asian refugee immigrants. / Medicine, Faculty of / Population and Public Health (SPPH), School of / Graduate