Hamilton Newcomer Day 2025
Hamilton Newcomer Day (HND) is a free annual event held in May by the Hamilton Immigration Partnership Council (HIPC). HIPC is situated within Hamilton Economic Development Division, and is focused on improving local settlement outcomes and creating a sense of belonging for newcomers. HND serves this mission by:
- Welcoming newcomers to Hamilton
- Providing access to a wide range of services through an information fair
- Celebrating newcomer contributions with local vendors and live entertainment
This year’s HND was an unqualified success. Approximately 1,000 attendees experienced 5 food vendors, 10 marketplace vendors, and met with 50 community organizations. The highlight of the day included a citizenship ceremony at Hamilton’s City Hall, where 29 immigrants completed their citizenship journey. HND was further supported by 30 volunteers, many of whom were participating in their first volunteer experience.
HND collected feedback from both volunteers and attendees after the event to measure success beyond the economic impact generated by 20 small businesses owned by immigrants and refugees. Therein, 93% of volunteers reported they were either satisfied or very satisfied with their experience. Additionally, 90% of participants in the information fair reported achieving their desired outcome.
As the target audience for HND, which includes Newcomers to Canada, Hamilton residents seeking to build community, and members of the BIPOC community, can have limited connections to the formal and informal networks that could steer them to the event, direct and indirect marketing is HND’s biggest challenge.
These challenges were addressed through social media advertising on Instagram that realized:
- 126,000 views
- 506 new followers
- 1,138 link clicks
Indirect marketing occurred through outreach, referrals, and word-of-mouth advertising to various ethnocultural associations in Hamilton. Notably, Afghan, Latin American, Iranian, Somali ethnocultural organizations were represented at HND.
HND’s outcomes mirror HIPC’s mission to create a sense of belonging for Hamilton’s newcomers. HND demonstrated how belonging goes beyond a sense of personal inclusion and extends economic belonging. This is seen in the strength of the newcomer marketplace that helped anchor the event and the immigrant and newcomer background of the speakers, musicians, DJs, and stage management at the event. This level of economic engagement both supports newcomer and immigrant-owned businesses and demonstrates tangible examples of settlement success.
HND can serve as a template for newcomer days in other communities. The most significant step toward delivering a strong program is gathering data on the local newcomer population and building community connections to determine interest levels in a newcomer event.
This application package includes the results of HIPC’s 2023 Immigrant Survey (https://hamiltonimmigration.ca/wp-content/uploads/HIPC-IS2023-report.pdf), whose data validated that Newcomer Day programming is aligned to the needs of Hamilton’s immigrant and newcomer community. Any community can leverage this survey to generate a preliminary snapshot of their local needs. Subsequent programming can then be tailored according to the data and built through an anti-racism and anti-oppression based framework that centers newcomers and immigrants in the event’s planning.
Hamilton Day Video: https://youtu.be/aiTkSFlDRl4?si=3PBLYAByPCCJJ12L
Website: https://hamiltonnewcomerday.ca/
New Canadians Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0q_nUl6G10
CHCH News: https://www.chch.com/chch-news/hamilton-newcomer-day-educates-and-celebrates/
