Welcome Inn Community Centre

This year’s Diversity Festival will be on August 22nd. We have some amazing vendors already signed up. Here’s a little peak at who will be there. Mexico en la piel Saboreando| Caribbean inspired Grazing Table

Be a vendor at this years diversity fair! August 22nd 9-5. 🌎🌍🌏

Just a reminder that the food bank and other programs will be closed tomorrow for the statutory holiday. We hope you all have a good Canada Day! and we’ll be open as usual on Thursday and Friday.

Donations can be made at www.welcomeinn.ca/donate

It was February 2022. I had arrived at a shelter after my financial resources had completely run dry. Knowing no one, we settled into a place where my son and I had nothing more than a room with a bed to sleep in, together.

Under Hamilton’s most relentless winter, and thanks to information from another family who was also staying in that place with us, we arrived at Welcome Inn with our souls exposed by displacement and our hands completely empty. In that moment of extreme vulnerability, "Welcome Inn"—or rather, the food bank, because, at that time, we didn't know the name of the organization—opened its doors to me. Without asking me anything other than my name, they handed me a box of food.

That box contained more than physical sustenance; it was an invisible embrace that restored my dignity and ignited a glimmer of hope in the midst of all my helplessness. Upon receiving that help, something left a deep impression on my being: seeing that the hands holding me up belonged to senior volunteers. Watching those grandparents give their energy to a stranger was my greatest life lesson.

However, the impact of that life lesson awakened a deep sense of shame in me. I felt unworthy of asking for material help again, thinking that it was they, who should already be resting, who were working for me. I felt in my heart that the roles should be reversed, that it should be me working to protect them. I decided to hide my need and made a silent promise to myself: If I ever returned, it would be solely to put on the service apron by their side.

Destiny listened to that longing. Sometime later, thanks to a tip from a school classmate, my son came to Welcome Inn as a volunteer, finding there a sacred refuge, a genuine love, and a community home where he could be loved and offer his own heart. In that journey, I met Yaima, whose noble work is an engine for the center. In an environment where language can be an isolating barrier, finding someone in her who spoke my own language was a fundamental strength that gave me back my voice and opened the door for me to become a volunteer.

Today, I continue to travel a complex path. I am not speaking from a place of material comfort; I am still without formal employment, sheltering myself in the solidarity of this beautiful country and facing the trial of illness.

But my spirit remains burning bright. Just a few days ago, on this recent June 3rd, I was informed that I have been awarded a scholarship for the MELD Program at McMaster University to master the English language. My goal is to be able to one day express in this language the very same soul and poetry that I express today with the help of Google Translate.

Furthermore, for some time now, I have been channeling my resilience into writing two books: The Map of Wounds (“El Mapa de las Heridas”), where I recount my experiences through this immigration process, and Create to Heal (“Crear para Sanar”), where I intervene using art as a healing tool, convinced that health flourishes from within us.

It is from that conviction, rooted in my professional background in education in my home country, and out of gratitude for Yaima's support towards me, that I place my experience at the service of Welcome Inn. Although I do not hold a formal degree in music, life trained me in the classroom: I taught music classes and specialized in choral conducting. During my professional life, I had the honor of forming countless children's choirs in various schools, singing in a polyphonic teachers' choir for over twenty years, and creating a radio program along with several outreach projects at the school level.

Art has always been my language; I have composed the lyrics for multiple songs for folk ensembles in my homeland, and one of my creations was pre-selected for the national folk competition of the prestigious Viña del Mar International Song Festival.

In creating "Roots of Love", my mind, my soul, and my heart also hold a very intimate and familiar longing: I would love to bring musical life back to my son. He possesses an innate musical talent; he was a violin concertmaster in the Musical Symphony Orchestra of Linares, Chile, and he also plays the clarinet. I carefully share this part of our story, as it is still a very difficult process for my son to open up about and heal. Seeing our entire previous life suddenly extinguished as a result of a social injustice, leaving us completely defenseless with a destroyed present on the ground, opened deep wounds for him that he is still navigating. I know that music is a reconstructive channel, and this song could be the beginning of his own restoration.

With all this background and with my heart in my hand, my musical offering to Welcome Inn was born: “Roots of Love" (“Raíces de Amor”). Inspired by Welcome Inn’s logo, to me, the roots of the tree are those endearing grandparents and the team that runs the centre behind the scenes. They support the trunk of the logo, allowing those colorful hands to blossom in the canopy to help. By uniting without distinction of race, they share a love whose healing impact is immeasurable, and where one flourishes every day by sharing whatever one has—be it a lot or a little—or simply a word of encouragement with a simple smile.

As I do not have a studio or resources at the moment, I work from my vulnerability, leaning on technology. I use two AI applications for which I pay a subscription to protect and process my musical creations. I guide these tools myself, providing them with the lyrics, styles, and vocal range direction. With absolute warmth, I share this with you.

Today, with great respect and naturalness, I return to Welcome Inn with my background, my music, my beautiful family, and my health journeys, with the humble certainty that art is medicine and that together, creating and singing, we can transform our wounds into the most beautiful of springs.
--Zukamoto Sojimo
(Yes, this is her artist name, because
her identity still needs to be protected)

Roots of Love A song created by a refugee "Zukamoto Sojimo" about the community a...

My family and I first visited Welcome Inn four months ago. We had just arrived from Cuba. We immediately felt the warmth and care from the settlement support team. Yaima took the time to help us learn all parts of our immigration process, taught us how to use the bank, how to rent an apartment, and helped us register our children in school. It meant so much that we could have a real conversation in Spanish and ask questions that Yaima said she had when she first arrived.

Shortly after our first visit, my husband and I started to volunteer in the food bank. This was a time that we could forget some of our worries, work with others, share our care and compassion and treat people with dignity. It gave us the opportunity to contribute and give back to the community. Volunteering helped us to know about Canadian society and how to be included. We felt useful and very welcome--a feeling we thought we would never find leaving our home.

I soon joined the women’s Spanish peer-to-peer support group.This group has helped me so much in my transition to Canada. Knowing that I have a group of women supporting me has helped me to not feel lonely or depressed. This group has helped me focus on the future and solve the problems of the present.