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Dear Veza Global Supporters,

It is important to set the goals, reflect and express gratitude where needed. I wanted to take this time to express my gratitude for all your support this past year. 2020 has been a year of learnings, growth, challenges, awarenesses and impact. For those within the Veza community, many of you have been great supporters in many ways. Our team at Veza, rose to the challenge when the lockdown’s happened, the anti-Asian racism increased, George Floyd was murdered and the #blacklivesmatter movement gained a second wind. We rose through supporting our colleagues through directing individuals in need to the right organizations who had stepped up. We ourselves, took a backseat while we funneled equity, diversity and inclusion work to other disproportionately represented groups who specialized in supporting Black, Indigenous and Anti-Racism. We knew for ourselves that was the right thing to do as it is a marathon, not a sprint. We wanted to remind you all too, exactly that – the work you do is a marathon, not a sprint so the impact you want to make will happen. 

We were able to contribute to the conversation and our impact through having the conversations, speaking at workshops/panels, and educating ourselves on how to be better and do better. Through our own audits, advisory, training work, we were able to bring economic empowerment to disproportionately represented groups by impacting 500,000 people in 2020. We thank you for your continued support in sharing our services so that we could create this impact. 

In this last year, we have had a number of memorable highlights that kept us going. We relaunched the ASCEND program for skilled immigrants with the Immigrant Employers Council of BC. 

We worked in partnership with HR Tech Group to create a Diversity and Inclusion Hub of curated over 300 equity, diversity and inclusion resources. Through this partnership, we audited various tech companies to help them understand where they are on their EDI journey and their path forward. 

Our team created a number of resources to help individuals and organizations to be more inclusive.

We worked closely with the Women’s Enterprise Centre Team to support immigrant women entrepreneurs in the province in terms of peer mentoring, funding and resources. 

We had the privilege of working with Community Future’s Entrepreneurs with Disabilities program and coached a few of their entrepreneurs on their business ideas. 

We worked with some outstanding individuals who are so committed to creating inclusive cultures in various industries from not for profit, tech, real estate, restaurant, government and law enforcement.

What to look forward to in 2021

In the upcoming year, we are looking forward to continuing our equity, diversity and inclusion work and impact. We have some exciting new announcements of programs coming out this year. 

Thank you to each of you for helping us make the impact that we are working to make. There are so many people to thank for this journey, each of them contributed in their own way. 

Warmly,

Manpreet

CEO/Founder

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