WHO ARE WE
We are a non-profit registered charity providing social services primarily in Surrey, Delta, White Rock and Langley. We believe in helping people help themselves. We believe in collaborating with individuals, businesses, community groups and government to create focused, effective and responsive resources for the community.
We envision a healthy community as a safe and clean environment where we all have a sense of belonging. It is a place where each of us has the opportunity to work and learn and to develop and realize goals that are meaningful and fulfilling.
Newcomer stories
For this project, a group of youth have told their stories and experiences in the form of a book. This group of youth met every Thursday to work on this project. The goal of this project is to learn about human rights and to educate others. This book will also include helpful recourses.
HUMAN RIGHTS BENCH PROJECT
KEY ISSUE BEING ADDRESSED THROUGH OUR PROJECT
Newcomer families, have moved away from their extended families, often living without inter-generational interactions. These interactions are important to both youth and seniors and leading to a healthy community.
THE PROJECT
Newcomer youth and seniors worked together to design and build a "Human Rights Bench" while engaging in dialogue on human rights. It was mutually agreed to donate and place the bench in a public space as a lasting reminder of why newcomers and youth came together to raise awareness of human rights.

In front of Expresso Café across the street from Harry Bain’s office on 137th Street in Newton, next to the mini-library now sits the Equitas-Options Human Rights Bench. Options, in partnership with Equitas, worked with newcomer youth on a Community Action Project. Newcomer youth have initiated an inter-generational project with newcomer seniors and decorated this beautiful bench to bring awareness of human rights issues to the community and to create a more inclusive and welcoming community.
Our Human Rights
Options Newcomer Youth Stories

The idea behind the Options Newcomer Youth Human Rights Booklet was borne out of a shared desire to tell their stories from the human rights perspective. Through the successful completion of their summer project of a short video telling newcomer youth experiences of settling in a new country, Options newcomer youth gained confidence in having their voices heard. From that experience of being heard and Equitas training of being empowered to make changes, they learned the importance of not only making their voices heard, but of amplifying their voices by becoming change makers.
We were lucky enough to have Equitas believe in our project and trust our youth to become human rights ambassadors through this project. They provided training, support and funding for printing the booklet.
You can download a copy of our booklet here