It’s Time to Systemize the Institutional Wisdom in Our Community

Over the last 30 months, I’ve interviewed over 150 immigrants on The Newcomers. Each story has left me with the firm belief that newcomer support is a vulnerable and personal process.

If you asked around, it wouldn’t take long for you to come across an anecdote of immigrants who are hesitant to ask for help, not because they don’t need it, but because they don’t want to seem needy or don’t have a familiar or friendly face to turn to when things seem dire or confusing.

These sorts of situations are why most of what newcomers learn as they try to settle into their new country happens in informal communal spaces. However, the danger of these learning pods is that information is lost. It isn’t codified. And the next set of newcomers has to start again from ground zero. When someone figures out the best way to get their credentials recognized, that insight shouldn’t fade away. It should be preserved, shared, and reused.

And that’s where platforms like The Nod App help. The platform removes the awkwardness or temporary introversion that often surrounds those early days. Newcomers get a structured process that has the semblance of a community, yet the codified wisdom from the successes and failures of those that came before them.

So, where do we actually begin turning this scattered institutional wisdom into something newcomers find useful from the jump?

The Three Most Common Asks I See

In my experience, systemizing community wisdom would require us to tackle the three most common requests newcomers make: navigation, translation, and connection.

1. Navigation is all about figuring out the maze of settlement. How to get a Social Insurance Number, which banks offer good newcomer accounts, or where to find food that tastes like home. These seem like small things, but they’re overwhelming when you’re also trying to learn new social norms.
2. Translation goes beyond language. It’s that persistent sense that you’re missing something. Like wondering why Canadians apologize so much. Or how to network when your home country took a more direct approach. It’s realizing that “let’s grab coffee sometime” might not mean an actual invite to coffee. These are the invisible things that shape how we engage with a new society.
3. Connection is often the most tender ask. It’s the longing for belonging, for a time, place, or version of yourself that feels familiar. This is where I see The Nod truly making a difference. Traditional settlement services sometimes skip over this part. But deep human connection is what makes a place feel like home.

Systematized Community Care Makes it More Sustainable, but….

We have to be careful not to strip the learning process of the inherent humanity that comes with the traditional community support. Yes, it depends on who you happen to meet or what networks you stumble into. But it’s worked so far because newcomers can be themselves and not feel like some cog in a machine that’s only waiting to spit them out once they get to the end of the assembly line.

Our systemized process has to make needs visible and match people intentionally, not just by chance. The magic happens when helping someone get through their first Canadian winter turns into a blossoming friendship.  This is where the features of The Nod App can shift the immigrant experience. Download The Nod app, join the movement, and let’s build a system that helps Black newcomers hit the ground running, and in doing so, helps us all move forward.