Zhao Kai started volunteering at the Immigrant Centre as a Computer Training Facilitator in April 2017. “At first, I didn’t think that volunteers were important, but I know now how important it is to volunteer.”

He credits his interest in volunteering to his wife Fay, who became involved in volunteering as a student at Red River College and introduced him to the idea. Fay also volunteers at the Immigrant Centre.

Prior to joining the Centre, Kyle had done a bit of volunteer work at Manitoba Start; however, he says, “before volunteering at the Immigrant Centre, I did not know people had this problem; needing computer help.”

Zhao soon noticed that half of the people who come to the computer class are seniors. “My father has the same issue, so I understand. He used the fax to contact customers for his business, but most people don’t use fax anymore; they use email, so now he has to learn email.”

Zhao thinks that his own experience of moving to a new country allows him to better relate to the clients that he helps. “When you move to a new place, you need to find a job, so you need to know how to use a computer. The clients are glad to come here and I want to let them know that it’s a good place, not only to study computers, but also to get help with finding a job.”

“When I work here, not only is it helpful for them, but for me also. I meet people from different countries. I have travelled to other countries so when we discuss, we make connections. We share information about resources and I learn many things about Canada.”

Zhao has been an IT Engineer for over 15 years. For ten of those years he was a System Integration Engineer for Huawei. He is currently working on getting his software developer certifications.