Welcome to Kamloops E-book

Oleksandr (Sasha) Kondrashov

Every newcomer to Kamloops can now find information about the city and resources to meet commonly expressed needs related to health care, education, employment, recreation etc. in one place.  Welcome to Kamloops e-book, first edition, is now available online.

For the last four years, newcomers in Kamloops had an opportunity to take a community-based course, “Welcome to Kamloops” offered at the Thompson Rivers University. This year thanks to financial support from the Dean Airini at the Faculty Education and Social Work in March 2020, two international students (research assistants) were hired to contribute to the Welcome to Kamloops e-book.  Together with other BSW and MSW practicum students and local volunteers, the critical data was collected. Dr. Oleksandr (Sasha) Kondrashov organized each chapter, edited the book, and published the e-book version online.  For those who know how to use Google Translate and read the book in more than 100 languages, the Google Translate accessible version of the e-book (no pictures) can be found here.

Thank you to all the contributors to the first edition: Alexzandra Anzulovich, BSW(c), Aman Madan, BSW(c), Jeanne Albutra, BSW(c), Jennifer Blencowe, BSW, Oleksandr (Sasha) Kondrashov, PhD, Sara Gillis, BSW, Sierra Israel, MSW, Tabitha Butler Smith, BSW (c), Yangchao (Paul) Hu, MEd for sharing your valuable knowledge with Kamloops newcomer populations.

The Welcome to Kamloops project is ongoing, and next year Welcome to Kamloops course participants will have a textbook to guide their learning. Everyone who wants to contribute to the e-book, please feel free to send your 1-page contributions (font 16 Colibri with 0.7-inch margins) via e-mail to Dr. Oleksandr (Sasha) Kondrashov at okondrashov@tru.ca. Contributions will be included in the second edition of the book that is scheduled to be published in July 2021. The second edition of the Welcome to Kamloops e-book will also become an additional textbook for Welcome to University course. The new course will be offered in partnership between TRU and School District #73 and provide support for international high school students in Kamloops to continue their post-secondary education.

Let’s keep making Kamloops welcoming to newcomers together.