Welcoming Newcomers to Teeny Tiny Places
Key Note Speaker: Tareq Hadhad
Many of our small rural communities’ struggle to attract new residents to fill their workforce gaps and support ongoing community investment. This Teeny Tiny Summit will feature Tareq Hadhad. Tareq was once a displaced refugee who immigrated to Canada in 2015, as war gripped Syria and his home city of Damascus. Supported by a small town in Nova Scotia upon landing, Tareq and his family built an internationally successful chocolate manufacturing business called Peace By Chocolate. Tareq will share his insights on how the community of Antigonish worked together to make him and his family feel welcome, and the meaningful supports they received as newcomers to a small rural community. His story will highlight the importance of bringing newcomers to a rural community, who bring with them new skills, determination and in his case, a thriving business. Tareq will provide additional perspectives on what it’s like building a business in a small rural community and the importance of community in job creation.
The program will also include success stories from small places throughout the province, and opportunities to share and learn from other community leaders. Much of the content is focused on what can be accomplished by volunteers working together with municipalities. In small places, volunteers are a critical part of economic development. Many of the presenters and participants are volunteers.
Immediately following the webinar, be sure to join our chat by searching on Twitter for #TeenyTinySummit to connect, network and share ideas on welcoming newcomers to Teeny Tiny Places.
The Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) has committed to multi-year support of the Teeny Tiny program allowing high quality keynote speakers to be secured for this year’s webinars, including Tareq Hadhad as the kickoff keynote speaker.
Registration will open soon at https://teenytinysummits.omafrabdb-events.ca/ for the October 13, webinar.
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