COSTI believes all women deserve a supportive environment in which they can feel empowered. Last year COSTI offered support to over 10,000 adult and young women in specialized employment services, supportive counselling, workshops on financial matters, health, parenting, and much more.

Women of all races and ages face personal systemic barriers every day. Many immigrant women who come to Canada are well-educated and experienced professionals, but overlooked by employers because they are not able to communicate at a high level of English. Others need access to housing, mental health services, settlement and counselling services.

We continue to experience a year-over-year increase in the number of women accessing our services. One of COSTI’s priorities for 2021/22 is to continue to develop skills training courses utilizing digital platforms and expand current technical training courses such as Coding Courses for Women and Digital and Media Literacy, allowing more women to participate. In addition, we will continue to explore corporate involvement and funding opportunities that will allow us to sustain successful programs for women and provide supports to enable them to care for their children and themselves, particularly since many of our clients are the sole income earner and caregiver of their children.