About us
We help immigrant women begin again — and thrive.
Ontario Immigrants Association (OIA) is a women-led community in North York, Toronto, dedicated to empowering immigrant women — especially Persian-speaking newcomers — through mental health support, education, entrepreneurship and genuine belonging.
Our mission
To empower immigrant women to rebuild their lives with confidence, independence and income — by removing the barriers of language, isolation and lost professional identity that so many newcomers face.
Our vision
An Ontario where every immigrant woman has the skills, the community and the self-belief to build the life and business she came here for.
Why we started
Why we started
Immigration is often described as an opportunity. For women, it is also frequently an experience of loss — of language, of profession, of network, and of the confidence that comes with being understood.
OIA was founded by a social worker and educator who watched talented, capable women arrive in Canada and slowly shrink under the weight of starting from zero. The skills were there. The drive was there. What was missing was a bridge.
We built that bridge: a place where a woman can learn English in the morning, learn to price her handmade products in the afternoon, and leave feeling she belongs. Not a charity that hands out help — a community that builds capability.
About us
What we stand for
Dignity first
We meet every woman as a capable adult with talent to grow, never as a problem to fix.
Practical over theoretical
Everything we teach can be used the same week — to speak, to sell, to earn, to belong.
Women lifting women
Our strength is a community where members become mentors and customers become friends.
Culturally rooted
We serve in English and Farsi because being understood in your own language changes everything.
About us
Who we serve
A note from our founder
“I have sat across from too many brilliant women who had been told, in a hundred small ways, that they were starting over with nothing. They were not starting with nothing. They were starting with everything — they just needed a community that could see it. That is what we built.”