On Wednesday evening, the Carrefour jeunesse-emploi du Pontiac held a 5 à 7 at Café Downtown in Fort-Coulonge to welcome newcomers to the region. 

Nicky Mahamba, an employee with the Carrefour’s Place aux Jeunes program, explained that the evening was organized to promote conversations and networking between newly arrived Pontiacers, either immigrants from outside Canada or from another province, with well-established people in the community. 

She explained in French that she had invited guests to wear an item of clothing that reflects their culture to help spark conversation. Mahamba, herself originally from Congo, wore a style of dress that she said is common in that part of Africa. 

The event also served as part of the Quebec Immigration ministry’s “week of intercultural meetings”, an initiative to promote the integration of newcomers in the province. In addition to new immigrants, organizers invited MRC employees, members of the media and other locals to mingle and make contacts as well.  

Carrefour director Karim El-Kerch thanked attendees for coming and highlighted the work that the Carrefour was undertaking with its regional partners to ease people’s arrivals in the Pontiac, through helping them find housing, employment and other needs. 

Attendees were invited to play a game called “My country in three minutes”, where they had to give a short description of their region of origin to each other.  

Benjamin Segobaetso, who arrived in Canada from Botswana around 20 years ago, was at the gathering and said that he enjoyed meeting with people throughout the region. He said he had just defended his PhD dissertation at Carleton University, on the ethical implications of outer space development. He encouraged anyone that was interested to visit his home country Botswana, a land-locked nation in Southern Africa known for its diversity of wildlife. 

“It’s a very good country to visit,” he said.