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A different way of immigrating to Canada is through the Live-in Caregiver Program. The Live-in Caregiver Program allows qualified individuals to apply for permanent residence in Canada while living and working in Canada.

This article is not legal advice, but rather is merely informational. It is accurate as of November 20, 2005.

The basic rules are simple: you need a certain amount of schooling, you must have educational or practical experience as a caregiver, you must have had work offered to you in Canada as a live-in caregiver, and you need a certain understanding of English or French. If you are reading this article, it appears that your English is good enough to qualify.

A “live-in caregiver” means that you work and reside in the home in which you are providing care. The Live-in Caregiver Program was developed due to the shortage of Canadians available or willing to work in such a job, and therefore the market was opened to international workers.

After two years of employment as a live-in caregiver within three years of arriving in Canada, you may apply for a permanent residence through paying the proper fees and completing and submitting the appropriate forms.

In 2003, it was reported that 1,074 permanent residents in Canada were drawn from the Live-in Caregiver Program. This number includes not only the live-in caregivers themselves, but also their spouses and dependants.

The Live-in Caregiver Program may be recommended for those who want work experience in Canada, or for those who are unable to qualify for immigrate to Canada through the Family Class or Skilled Worker Class.

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In recent years, a new term - social enterprise - has started to develop throughout the world (Borzaga and Defourny, 2001). This article attempts to answer some key questions for four specific interest groups:

1. Those in the private sector wondering if social enterprises are a threat or an opportunity for them (and how they might alter their own practice to remain competitive).
2. Those in the voluntary / community sector trying to work out their medium/long-term future (whether they should engage or resist the notion of social enterprise).
3. Those in the public sector being asked to develop, support or commission work from social enterprises.
4. Those who self-define as social enterprise, wondering how to understand themselves and describe the value of their approach to others.

The problems surrounding the definition of social enterprise can be explored by reviewing the contexts in which the term is now being used. A country’s economy can been conceptualised as having three sectors (Billis, 1993; Pearce, 2003): a public sector (state institutions and publicly owned and funded organisations); a private sector (businesses established by individuals for purposes other than the development of the state, principally to earn money and make a living); a voluntary sector (organisations established by people on a voluntary basis to pursue a social or community goal).

The problem with the above definition is that it tends to exclude organisations that transgress the boundaries of these definitions. For example, co-operative enterprises (owned by employees, producers or consumers) cross the boundary between the private and voluntary sectors (Oakeshott, 1990). They often have a social or community goal, but are usually set up to distribute financial benefits equitably to all parties involved in an enterprise rather than prioritise the needs and financial goals of the founders (Ridley-Duff, 2002). While the term co-operative has varying degrees of salience, many household names provide good examples of this organisation form: The London Symphony Orchestra, PA News (the world’s largest news agency), John Lewis (with nearly 70,000 partners) and the Mondragon Co-operative Corporation (with over 60,000 members in nearly 200 organisations across 45 countries) are all enduring examples.

The continued growth and development of co-operative forms of enterprise, and ‘mutual help’ as a commercial principle led to the emergence of the a new term in the early 1990s - The Third Sector. This terms covers more than voluntary bodies and charities and includes mutual organisations (e.g. building societies) and producer, marketing and consumer co-operatives (see OFT, 2008). One social value that pervades the entire Third Sector is a concern that contemporary private and public sector management principles have contributed to the social exclusion of disadvantaged groups and vulnerable individuals. For some in the sector, the goal is to address (and find alternatives to) powerful political and financial interests that disempower many citizens (Morrison, 1991; EAO, 2008). Many Third Sector organisations, therefore, share an orientation that specifically attempts to reduce social exclusion. They may do this in a variety of ways: by providing services more cheaply to disadvantaged groups; using collective bargaining power to negotiate access to scarce or expensive resources; organising themselves in a way that enfranchises and empowers individual members (and gives them a political voice); traditional approaches by attempting to redistribute surplus wealth to disadvantaged groups through charitable practices and organisations.

The identification and growth of the Third Sector has been accelerated by changes in the public sector. Since the early 1980s, there has been a shift away from welfare through state institutions and a greater use of agencies and contractors. New Public Management is a concept that has underpinned a new commercialisation agenda (attempts by government to make greater use of markets and private sector thinking in public service delivery to ’save’ money). Accompanying this is a belief that business practices and managerial solutions will improve the ‘performance’ of the public sector and create a more efficient and fair society (Paton, 2006; Chandler, 2008). It is this thinking that is now driving changes in the UK National Health Service (NHS): the UK, as in other parts of the world, is switching to a ‘contracting culture’ in which grants (or statutory funding) are replaced by contracts for service delivery. So, in recent years, the boundaries between the private sector (in term of market thinking and managerial practices) have impacted the public and voluntary sectors and started to blur traditional distinctions between them (Bull, 2006, 2007). Secondly, the emergence of radical business alternatives with a strong social orientation, democratic organisation, and positive attitude to ‘profitable’ trading has led to formal recognition and academic scrutiny (Seanor, Bull and Ridley-Duff, 2007).

In the late 1990s, I played a minor role in discussions to establish a new business support agency. Around the table were support and trading organisations from the co-operative sector (Computercraft Ltd, Poptel, ICOM London) and representatives from public sector training and enterprise councils (TECs) that supported skill development in the voluntary and community sectors. All of us were looking for an idea (and name) that captured the goals for a new support agency. We decided on the name Social Enterprise London and established a new organisation. Members of Computercraft and Poptel (a phone co-operative) provided political support and organisational know-how. The TEC and ICOM provided assets and funding streams that enabled Social Enterprise London to establish itself (SEL, 2008). Whether this is the first organisation to use and promote the term social enterprise throughout the UK is unclear, but the role of Social Enterprise London in helping to bring the concept (and language) to public consciousness is not in doubt. It helped to establish the first Social Enterprise degree courses at the University of East London (UEL, 2008) as well as the first Social Enterprise Journal that is now owned and published by Emerald Publishing (JMU, 2008).

With their help (as well as many others) the term social enterprise has started to spread throughout our culture. By 2008, it had been appropriated by four distinct groups to describe their approach to organisation:

• A - Charities and voluntary groups that are embracing a ‘contracting culture’ by tendering for public sector contracts.
• B - Charities and voluntary groups that establish trading operations to generate income for their social missions.
• C - Co-operatives or stakeholder businesses that tackle social exclusion by adopting democratic governance and human resource practices.
• D - Businesses that deliberately re-invest or share their surpluses in a ‘public interest’ or ‘fair trade’ enterprise.

Three of these contexts (A, B and C) are typically linked to developments in the Third Sector (community businesses, social firms, voluntary groups, charities, co-operatives, credit unions and mutual societies). The last of these are increasingly linked to the agenda of ‘New Public Management’ that seeks to reverse the post-WW2 policy regarding the state’s role in the delivery of education, health and social services.

As a result, the term ‘social enterprise’ has become highly contested. Advocates from each of these groups may, or may not, recognise the other parties as legitimate social enterprises. This is experienced most sharply when organisations trading for a social purpose are rejected by social enterprise support agencies on the grounds that they do not organise themselves in a sufficiently transparent way, or are trading with commercial organisations for ‘private’ gain. As a way through these conceptual difficulties, it is helpful to examine how theories of social enterprise are grouped into two competing perspectives. Firstly, there are those that conceive social enterprises as trading organisations sitting in the middle of a continuum between the pursuit of a social mission (charitable) and trading in a market (private). The issue here, for those supporting their development, is whether they are sufficiently social in their organisation and trading purposes.

Another perspective, however, breaks out of this linear mode of thinking and views social enterprise as a trading organisation capable of rebuilding and developing social capital where this has been destroyed / depleted by contemporary political / economic business thinking (Laville and Nyssens, 2001). As such it emerges in the boundaries between the public, private and voluntary sectors to address the shortcomings of each (Nyssens, 2006; Ridley-Duff, 2008). In its ideal form (a multi-stakeholder co-operative or business) it has a social mission, an inclusive system of governance that erodes the distinction between ‘governors’ and ‘governed’ (or ‘directors’ and ‘employees’). At the same time, there is a renewed emphasis on sufficient trading strength to impact positively on the lives of all parties to the enterprise. In this guise, social enterprise moves beyond another form of charity in which wealthy philanthropists use their wealth and business logic to solve social problems (Nicholls, 2006) and becomes an alternative way of understanding wealth creation that echews the thinking that creates socially excluded individuals and groups in the first place (Ridley-Duff, 2008). This broader based understanding is embraced by the Social Enterprise Coalition (SEC, 2008).

In short, social enterprise can be applied to any of the following:

1. Enterprises that bridge the boundaries between the private and voluntary sectors (e.g. trading charities and mutual societies).
2. Enterprises that bridge the boundaries between the private and government sectors (e.g. housing associations and public/private partnerships in the Health Sector).
3. Enterprises that bridge the boundaries between government and voluntary sectors (e.g. enterprise / employment support services provided under contract).
4. Enterprises that internalise a social orientation, democratic governance and entrepreneurial trading (e.g. co-operatives / employee-owned / co-owned businesses).

Acknowledgement

^{This article has been written by one of the authors for a forthcoming book by Sage Publications. Understanding Social Enterprise: Theory and Practice will be marketed by Sage Publications from early 2010 onwards. This article draws on material submitted for the book proposal and approved by the Sage editorial board in March 2008. The authors of the book will be Rory Ridley-Duff, Mike Bull and Pam Seanor.}

References

Billis, D. (1993)Organizing Public and Voluntary Agencies, London: Routledge.

Borzaga, C. and Defourny, J. (eds), (2001) The Emergence of Social Enterprise, London: Routledge. Bull, M. (2006), Balance: Unlocking Performance in Social Enterprise, Manchester: Centre for Enterprise, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Bull, M. (2007), “Balance: The Development of a Social Enterprise Business Performance Analysis Tool”, Social Enterprise Journal, 3:49-66.

Chandler, J. (2008) Explaining Local Government: Local Government in Britain Since 1800, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

JMU (2008) “Social Enterprise Journal”, http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/socialenterprise/67985.htm

EAO (2008) “The voice of co-owned business”, http://www.employeeownership.co.uk/

Laville, J. L. and Nyssens, M. (2001), “Towards a theoretical socio-economic approach”, in Borzaga, C. and Defourny, J. (eds), The Emergence of Social Enterprise, Routledge, London, pp. 312-332.

Morrison, R. (1991) We Build the Road as We Travel, New Society Publishers.

Nicholls, A. (2006)Social Entrepreneurship: New Paradigms of Sustainable Social Change, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nyssens, M. (2006)Social Enterprise at the Crossroads of Market, Public and Civil Society, London: Routledge.

Oakeshott, R. (1990) The Case for Worker Co-ops (2^nd Edition), Macmillan.

OFT (2008), “About us”, London: Office of the Third Sector, http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/about_us.aspx

Paton, R. (2003) Managing and Measuring Social Enterprise, London: Sage Publications.

Pearce, J. (2003)Social Enterprise in Anytown, London: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Ridley-Duff, R. J. (2002) Silent Revolution: Creating and Managing Social Enterprises, Barnsley: First Contact Software Ltd.

Ridley-Duff, R. J. (2008) ‘Social Enterprise as a Socially Rational Business’, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour, 14(5), forthcoming.

Seanor, P., Bull, M. & Ridley-Duff, R. J. (2007) “Contradiction in Social Enterprise”, paper to the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference, Glasgow, 7th-9th 2007.

SEC (2008) “What is social enterprise?” http://www.socialenterprise.org.uk/page.aspx?SP=1345

SEL (2008) “About Social Enterprise London”, http://www.sel.org.uk/about.html

UEL (2008) BA (Hons) Social Enterprise, http://www.uel.ac.uk/programmes/ssmcs/undergraduate/summary/socialenterprise-ba.htm

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If You Recently Got Laid Off or Fired from Your Job, Your Good Luck Has Just Begun! 

Whenever friends or acquaintances tell me that they have either got fired or quit their conventional jobs, my response is, “Congratulations.” After I said this to a friend who quit his job during an economic recession not so long ago, his face lit up, before he started laughing and remarked, “You are the only one who has said this to me. Everyone else is asking me things like ‘How could you during a recession? Jobs are so hard to come by!’ or ‘How are you going to survive?’ ”

I congratulate people who have quit or lost their jobs because I know that for people who want real success in their lives, unemployment is an opportunity for them to go on to something better. In fact, if you have been in the workforce for over twenty years and have never gotten fired and experienced unemployment, you are likely not a risk taker or all that creative.

Indeed, some of the most creative and famous people in the world have got fired. In 1978 Lee Iacocca was fired from his job as president of Ford Motor Company by Henry Ford II, who told Iacocca, “I just don’t like you.” Soon after, Iacocca became the chief of bankrupt Chrysler Corporation and made it profitable for years.

No doubt, getting fired and being faced with unemployment can be distressing, as it was for me when I got axed from my engineering position over two and a half decades ago. But it wouldn’t have been distressing at all if I had known at the time that I was destined for much greater things. Indeed, if I had known where I would be twenty-five years later — experiencing career success without a real job — I would have been profusely thanking my boss the second he fired me. What’s more, I would have had a celebration that day as expensive and as big as I had twenty-five years later in honor of my twenty-five years without a real job.

As an author and occasional professional speaker specializing in helping people be happy away from the traditional workplace, I have had an interest in good quotations about work and the workplace. It naturally follows that interesting anonymous comments about the workplace in the form of graffiti also get my attention. Thus, I put together a collection called Graffiti for the Employee’s Soul. (It’s free — just like all the other best things in life! You can download the e-book in PDF format at Creative Free E-books ) The following twelve items come from the e-book:

• Working here is a nightmare. You want to wake up and leave but you need the sleep.
• I owe. I owe. And off to work I go.
• The thought of suicide has helped me get through many days at work.
• Teamwork magically inspires our group to come up with solutions that are consistently and considerably dumber than any one of us.
• My job is a big secret. Even I don’t know what I am doing.
• As long as we continue to work here, happiness is just an idea.
• Can I trade this job for what’s behind door Number 2?
• I’m just working here till a good fast-food job opens up.
• Like to meet new people? Like a change? Like excitement? Like a new job? Then screw up
  just one more time!
• Around here, “progress” is everything getting worse at a slower rate than it used to.
• I just took a self-improvement course and discovered I no longer need to punish, deceive, or compromise myself — unless I want to keep my job.
• My work cubicle is just a padded cell without a door. I want my freedom and I want it now.

If you have just been fired from your job and are considering another job like it, the above comments may motivate you to consider something different that will lead to real career fulfillment. Whenever you catch yourself yearning for the benefits that your old job provided, it’s best to look at the other side of the coin. It’s like reminiscing about an old love affair. We tend to remember the good things much more so than the bad ones. So when you feel a little dejected because you miss the routine of your old job, consider all the things that you didn’t like about the job.

The reality is that many hugely successful people have been fired at one time or another — sometimes several times — and gone on to better things. Most of these people admit that getting the ax placed them on a fast track toward career fulfillment. Indeed, it was the best thing that ever happened to them. For some, losing a job was the incentive they needed to open their own shop so that they didn’t need to work at a job they hate ever again.

Years after working at an occupation that he hated, Leonard Lee, owner of Ottawa-based Lee Valley Tools and Algrove Publishing, told a reporter with The Globe and Mail, “No amount of money is worth doing a job you hate. It rots your soul. It destroys you.” So why do so many work at a job they hate if it destroys their souls? Who knows? Perhaps they don’t value their souls.

Many people do value their souls, however, and are not willing to sell out to the corporate world ever again once they get fired. Instead, they pass up even the most prestigious and high-paid positions, often for much less prestigious unreal jobs and lower pay, so that they can avoid working for a corporation.

Getting fired along with unemployment, as I found out, is the universe’s way of telling you that you were in the wrong job in the first place. It is also the universe’s way of testing you to see whether you can take advantage of the adversity that comes with unemployment and create some opportunity out of it, such as starting your own business. Put another way, unemployment is an opportunity to develop real character and true wealth.

If you are up to the universe’s challenge, miracles will come your way. Money isn’t as important as you may think it is. Many multimillion dollar businesses were started on kitchen tables. Passion, purpose, and dedication will take you places where money won’t.

The reality is that great corporate jobs are hard to come by in today’s world anyway. “The traditional admonition of one generation to the next, ‘get a job,’ has been replaced with a more complex mandate: ‘Go out and create a job for yourself,’ ” George Gendron, editor of Inc. magazine, recently told Publisher’s Weekly.

Being fired is an opportunity to create a job for yourself instead of finding another corporation that has a ready-made job for you, from which you can be just as easily fired some time in the future. A corporation can take away your job and your job title but it can’t take away your talent and creativity. By firing you, the corporation may be doing you a great favor inasmuch as you now have an opportunity to fully utilize your creativity and talent.

Getting fired is a great opportunity to rethink where you are, what your priorities are, what’s important to you, and whether or not you are in the right career. Getting another corporate job may only result in treating the symptoms — damage control, in other words. It has been my experience that the best way to fully utilize one’s creativity and talent is to shun a real job and create one’s own unreal job. If you can be successful at an unconventional job that involves self-employment, you won’t get fired ever again because you are the boss. Above all, getting fired is a great opportunity to pursue the unreal job that you have dreamed about pursuing for some time.

So again, don’t look at unemployment as all that bad of a thing. Your good luck may have just begun, particularly if you decide to make the great escape from the corporate world to pursue something totally unrelated to the field in which you were. You may feel that you have touched bottom, when, in fact, you are already headed upward. In the words of motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, “See you at the top.”

Note: This article is adapted from the book: Real Success Without a Real Job: The Career Book for People Too Smart to Work in Corporations by Ernie Zelinski

Purchase this book at: Real Success Without a Real Job on Amazon.com 

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In a world where size zero is the expected norm… it is nice to see a “plus size model” become successful. Nancy Hayssen, is one of those models, and she is beautiful and is trying to help change the modeling industry, especially after the publication of a very “anorexic” looking model in Europe.

According to statistics, 6 out of every 10 North American women are considered “plus size”. Plus size is considered size 14 and up. This means that more than 1/2 of the female population will be buying the latest fashions and styles in a size 14 and up.

Then why do they insist on displaying size zero models?. Why not show your fashion designs on a “average size” woman and help the self esteem of many young girls.

Young teenage girls want to fit in, and will aspire to become like these models. The problem is, that if your frame is larger, you are never going to be a size zero no matter what diet you try. But there are many young girls damaging their health trying to maintain this image.

In the last few years, stores have sprung up that cater to the plus size girl and women, but they are separate from the main stream stores, which further alienates a young girl. I personally am considered a “plus size”, at size 14-16, and after seeing a style in the window of a popular store, I went in, only to be told “my size is in the back”… like I had a disease or something. The front of the store only had size zero to 8.

Lately though, I have noticed a few more stores catering to all the sizes, and as long as we have beautiful “plus size models”, like Nancy Hayssen, then we should start seeing more styles and fashions for the 6 out of 10 women in North America that fit into the “plus size” label. Who came up with that term anyway?

Nancy Hayssen, is also a great author, and has written a book “You can be sexy at any size”.. she also is in a small film clip where she talks about her modeling career as a plus size model, and she is comfortable enough with her body to pose naked for the camera, (tastefully of course). This is a real plus for us larger girls. The short film gets the point across quite well…

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