About Wins
WINS Toronto is a Not-for-Profit organization which champions and aims to promote inclusive and equitable policies in the Canadian workforce. We enable and develop the professional skills of those who might have experienced challenges based on their dimensions of diversity. We provide an embracing community of care and support for professionals to learn from each other and expand their horizons through extended interaction with a professional network. The name WINS reflects our commitment to providing a setting in which our members and other diverse professionals can succeed and flourish.
WINS Toronto’s founder is Dr. Hitu Sood. Hitu started WINS Toronto on December 1, 2018. Through WINS Toronto, Hitu envisions to create a community of support for diverse multifaceted and talented professionals to achieve greater success and break down societally created barriers.
In 2020, WINS Toronto intends to bring attention to the barriers and challenges faced by immigrant women professionally in Canada. By using community research, case studies, dialogue, and discussions we intend to bring attention to these challenges and explore ways to overcome them.
An echo of diverse voices is what WINS Toronto is all about. Come join us to give your thoughts a voice. We welcome everyone to our public events for networking, discussions, and professional development.
Our mission
Our Vision
WINS is a not-for-profit that promotes inclusive policies and programs in Canada’s workforce. We are committed to advocate and help take steps towards ensuring the creation of more equitable workplaces in which diverse members of our society can flourish.
Our mission
We bring a growth mindset to diversity issues. The key to equity is a paradigm shift that sees all members of Canadian society including new members/ immigrants being accepted and valued for their distinctive strengths. This shift can be brought about only by questioning the status quo. WINS is committed to being part of such advocacy.
Our VALUES
-
Collaboration and Co-creation: WINS works together in creative ways to develop inclusive policies and programs that positively impact diverse members of our society.
-
Respectful Dialogue: WINS values respect and dignity in all its decisions and interactions. We respect and value the diversity of our team and those we serve. We behave with integrity, compassion and empathy to ensure all persons are treated with dignity.
-
Openness to Change: WINS champions transformative change that will bring about greater equity and inclusion for diverse members of our society.
-
Acceptance and Humanness: WINS believes that lives are transformed by empathy, addressing the heart and accepting human frailties.
-
World Focus: WINS is committed to promoting issues and solutions that impact not just our society but embrace the world at large.
Our STRATEGY
WINS is bringing attention to challenges faced by diverse professionals through a community-based approach driven by research that focuses on understanding the barriers impeding the professional success of those we represent. We make sure to view diversity and equity issues through a distinctly Canadian lens, keeping in mind that very often Canada’s diversity narrative gets swamped by the larger North American media spotlight.
We intend to achieve this through three main initiatives as follows:
1. Showcasing Diverse Voices: This initiative uses thorough community research that involves interviews, questionnaires, surveys, case studies and focus groups to examine the unique challenges of the groups we are representing. For example, we conducted a survey ‘Showcasing Immigrant Voices’ in February to March, 2021 the empirical results have helped WINS develop programs that enable immigrants on their professional paths and allows us to advocate for more equitable policies.
2. Road to Success: This initiative highlights diverse professionals’ skills and strengths in a variety of ways. We provide a public platform for diverse professionals as speakers. We offer an embracing community of support in which diverse professionals can learn and network with like-minded others. In addition, we offer consulting to employers, government service providers and other not-for-profits which aim to empower diverse professionals towards success. Through all this, we are finding proactive ways to bring employers, diverse professionals, and policy makers together to forge a novel, growth-driven approach that benefits all.
3. The Diversity Forum: This is our national tri-annual newsletter under the editorship of Mark Lovewell, the Chair of WINS Toronto. It has been established to promote dialogue and discussion with the broader community to highlight a range of views on issues affecting under-represented groups in Canadian society.