At Impakt, Cultural Ambassadors are newcomers and refugees with lived experience who walk alongside others as they navigate life in Canada. They build trust first, then help people move toward employment, housing, mental health support, and a community connection.
Through our Cultural Ambassadors, individuals with lived experience take on active roles in service delivery and design.
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FAQs
Cultural Ambassadors are the heart of Impakt Foundation.
They are refugees and newcomers who are not only speaking from “lived experience,” but from living the experience right now.
Many understand shelter life, displacement, isolation, and system navigation because they are close to it every day.
They are trusted peers, community leaders, and the bridge between refugees and the systems around them.
Because trust is the first intervention.
In our Shelter Hub, more than 100 residents registered in the first few months, far beyond our original capacity plan. That did not happen because of flyers or referrals. It happened because Cultural Ambassadors built trust.
People came because someone they trusted listened, understood, and walked with them.
Cultural Ambassadors bring three things together:
They are living the experience.
They understand the reality of being a refugee or newcomer in Canada now, not as a distant memory.
They have natural leadership.
They are the people others already go to for help, guidance, translation, encouragement, and problem-solving.
They bring social and community backgrounds.
Many have experience or education in social work, community support, education, counselling, advocacy, or informal leadership in their communities.
We look for people with empathy, courage, strong listening skills, cultural understanding, and the ability to bring people together.
We train Cultural Ambassadors in:
Trauma-informed support
Trust-based relationship building
Boundaries and confidentiality
Journey mapping
Employment and housing navigation
Mental health and community pathways
Program facilitation
Feedback and evaluation
Tali AI for documentation support
The goal is not to make them sit behind forms.
The goal is to equip them to lead.
They build relationships.
They listen, identify needs, create journey maps, connect residents to employment, housing, mental health, education, and community supports, and follow up along the way.
They do not simply refer people out.
They walk beside them.
This is why our Shelter Hub has already helped residents move into jobs, training, mentorship, and housing pathways in a short period of time.
They sit with each person and ask what matters most.
Not every refugee needs the same thing. One person may need a job urgently. Another may need housing support, mental health care, documentation help, or simply a trusted person to begin with.
Together, the Cultural Ambassador and the resident create a personalized journey map with goals, next steps, supports, and follow-up.
The map is created with refugees, not for them.
Tali AI helps Cultural Ambassadors focus on the relationship, not paperwork.
Instead of taking notes during sensitive conversations or filling out forms while someone is sharing their story, Cultural Ambassadors can listen fully. Tali AI helps organize the conversation into structured notes and journey maps afterward.
This means:
less paperwork,
more presence,
better follow-up,
and stronger relationships.
Impakt is one of the first refugee-support organizations using Tali AI this way — to protect the human connection at the centre of the work.
They design programs from what they hear and see every day.
Because they are close to residents, they know what people actually need, what barriers are showing up, which partners should be invited in, and what kind of support will feel safe and useful.
This is how Impakt avoids designing programs from a boardroom.
The community shapes the work through the Ambassadors.
They evaluate through trust.
Residents are more honest with people they know and trust. Cultural Ambassadors hear what worked, what did not, who felt left out, and what needs to change.
They bring that feedback back into the program design.
That is how Impakt learns in real time.
Most systems ask refugees to navigate services alone.
Impakt hires refugees and newcomers to lead the response.
Cultural Ambassadors build the relationships, design the supports, run the programs, collect feedback, and shape the future of the work.
This is not symbolic participation.
This is ownership.
This is what for refugees, by refugees looks like in practice.
