About the Site

'Coming to Canada', is an Urdu (a popular South Asian language) web site which has been developed for new and potential Immigrants who have come or planning to come to Canada in near future. Urdu speaking people are spread all over the world including Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, UK, Far East, Middle East, USA and Canada as well. According to a careful estimate only in GTA there are over 100,000 Urdu speaking people.

The other objectives of this site are

To bridge the gap that exists between the Canadian Society and our Community

To serve as the gateway for those organizations who want to convey their message directly to Pak Canadian Community

In addition to above objectives, we are also focussing on access to profession and trades and issues like poverty and racism etc., and have special sections in our web site. Since employment is also a very big issue for the community, so we are updating our job postings very frequently. We have a group of online Urdu speaking counselors, who can be contacted for relevant assistance / help. We also have a support of many known community organizations. The site is getting popularity, the average site hits for this year are over 60,000 per month, and the graph is increasing

This web site is divided in two parts. First part provides the general information about Canada. The second part;  "Immigration Guide", is composed of Frequent and general Questions asked by new / potential Immigrants, and their Answers.
A brief over view of Urdu speaking community living in Canada has also been presented

Here is a partial list of site contents in English, closest to the meaning in Urdu

General Information Contents

Canada: yesterday and today.

Canada : A welfare state

Canadian Society

Pak Canadian Community

Education System

Housing

Transport

Employment

Health

About Toronto

In addition to above topics, there are two more special Topics. Under one topic,  Readers / Viewers can present and share their experiences and views with others. Under other topic, news clipping and other information throwing some light on the different aspect of Canadian society are noted; like X-mas shopping this year, housing unit sales in Toronto, layoffs, new immigration law etc. These two sections are being updated frequently.

We have special section sections for Job Postings and upcoming Events as well. We are also dealing the issues of Access to Profession and trades very seriously.

Immigration Guide
So far it has over 100 frequently asked question of immigrants. More Q and Ans. with the passage of time. The Immigrants Questions are categorized as follows:

Preparation for Canada
Some sample Questions
Which is the best time/ season to come to Canada?
Who much money should have when I arrive in Canada?
What document should I carry with me coming to Canada?
What should I bring with me (utensils, house hold articles, computer etc.) and what should I not bring?

Arriving in Canada
Some sample Questions
How to select a hotel?
How to reach a hotel?
How to look for an accommodation?

Settling in Canada
This category covers questions related to employment, health, transportation etc.
Some sample Questions
What would be my monthly home budget?
How can I get my children admitted in schools?
Should I buy a car or not?
What approach should I take to look for a job?
How can I come in contact with other community members / organization etc.?

In order to support the website and have a regular liaison with our visitors, we have started a Yahoo group (canada999). This group was launched last year in July, and now have more than 3000 members.