In my own words: How mentoring a newcomer inspired Véronic Hudon-Paquette

The Community Impactprogram gives Intact Financial Corporation employees the flexibility to choose how and where they give, in ways that are meaningful to them. It's one way we live our value of generosity.

For many immigrants and refugees, integrating into their new society and finding a job that recognizes their skills and experiences can be challenging. Windmill Microlending helps them overcome these challenges by helping them have their training and skills recognized by Canadian employers.

We invested in Windmill's loan programin 2019 and since then, more than a dozen employees have volunteered to mentor a newcomer in a variety of specialties - including law, marketing and public relations, information technology and data science.

Véronic Hudon-Paquette, Operational Performance Analytics Specialist in Montreal, is one of those mentors. She worked with Tosin, an IT professional looking to restart his career in Canada.

Véronic says her experience mentoring Tosin benefited her as much as it did him.

"It was so fun and inspiring to see Tosin's dedication, openness and commitment to hard work," she says. "I was always looking forward to our mentoring sessions, as he would often share good news about his work progression or achieving new milestones. It made me happy and proud that I could, in a small way, help him on this journey."

Along with helping Tosin with his job search and giving him networking tips, Véronic helped him navigate the challenges of learning about life and work in his new country.

"Things could be a little tough for a newcomer to figure out but having someone who can help chart a decisive path to get you on your feet is greatly rewarding," he says. "Beyond academic skills, this relationship helped me to develop the required soft skills needed to succeed in any organization."

Windmill and Véronic helped him "recreate" himself and prioritize the goals he needed to achieve career success and establish himself in Canada, says Tosin.

Living our value of generosity

Our value of generosity guides us to care for people and find ways to help - whether that's by giving our time, financial resources, or sharing our talents.

Through the Community Impact program, the Intact Foundation amplifies employees' generosity by matching donations dollar for dollar or donating $20 for every hour they volunteer, to a combined maximum of $1,000 per year.